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The Fighting Words of Michael Brown

Tough-talking Pentecostal Dr Michael Brown is the latest Christian leader to be added to Love Won Out’s roster of conference speakers. In this article, we profile Dr Brown, and ask whether the ex-gay movement’s newest friend might only drag it deeper into “culture wars”.

Who is Brown?

Brown is an Old Testament scholar, a revivalist, a Pentecostal apologist, an evangelist to Jews and an unabashed moral crusader.

He is President of the FIRE School of Ministry, a non-denominational Charismatic Christian training college that grew out of the controversial “Brownsville Revival” (also known as the “Pensacola Outpouring”) of the 1990s. After a split between Brown and John Kilpatrick, then Pastor of the Brownsville Assembly of God, FIRE eventually relocated to Concord, North Carolina.

Since then, Brown has founded the Coalition of Conscience, a Charlotte-based network of conservative Christians working together for “moral and cultural change through the gospel,” and who want to “make an impact for righteousness” in the city. Chief among their activities has been opposing the Charlotte Gay Pride Parade.

Brown is a noted apologist for charismatic revival, particularly that which came out of Toronto in the early 1990s – a revival that divided evangelicals and became known for the exotic behaviour of its participants, including hysterical laughter, fainting (being “slain in the Spirit”), “spiritual drunkenness,” shaking and animal noises. He is also a Messianic Jew, and has an apologetic and evangelistic ministry dedicated to persuading Jews of “the Messianic credentials of Jesus (Yeshua) of Nazareth.”

Dem’s fightin’ words

A cursory glance at Brown’s vast output reveals the strong, aggressive language in which he wraps his message. Revolution! The Call to Holy War is the title of one of his books, for example. His writings are peppered with militaristic rhetoric:

[We] are in a life and death struggle … We really are in a war! … We live in a battle between two kingdoms … [1]

It will be a Jesus revolution, an intense clash between two spiritual kingdoms, a heavenly attack on the enemy’s strongholds, a no-compromise stand for morality and truth. [2]

Yes, the battle lines have been drawn, the enemy is taking ground, and many of us hardly realize that the war is on. The devil is moving forward with energy and aggression. What in the world are we doing? [3]

Brown’s disclaimer is that it is “a non-violent revolution based on purity, compassion, and sacrifice rather than one based on anger, intimidation, rebellion, and force,” but these are hardly comforting words to the targets of Brown’s crusade. Even when such language is clearly not meant in a physical sense, how is one supposed to receive it – especially when used to deny others their rights – if not as angry, intimidating, rebellious and forceful?

Brown and gays

Brown has a forthcoming book: A Queer Thing Happened to America: How a Stealth Agenda Is Changing Our Nation. For Brown, the growth of gay rights is just one more sign that Satan is targetting America. In a long discussion on Warren Throckmorton’s blog recently (a thread that took three nights for this writer to wade through!), Brown characterized gay rights as an infringement on his rights to practice his Christian faith:

[There] are activists who do have specific goals in mind, and some of those goals include the removal of my right to practice my faith before God — at least as it affects homosexual issues. [4]

Challenged on how gay rights violate his rights, Brown gives a lengthy explanation in which he complains that he would be required to “recognize” gay marriage, which would be “a fundamental denial of my moral and religious convictions.” One might ask whether allowing interracial marriage violates the rights of those whose religious faith is offended by the mixing of races? How would Brown would have responded to Kenneth Hagin, Jr, the charismatic preacher who taught his students this very thing? By Brown’s logic, how could the US allow interracial marriage without violating (the late) Hagin’s rights? And of course, Hagin’s children would be taught respect for interracial marriage in schools, and his tax dollars would support interracial marriage, to a degree – all objections that Brown levels against permitting gay marriage. The absurdity of the arguments becomes clear.

Does the ex-gay movement need Brown right now?

We have seen an increasing politicization of the ex-gay movement over the past few years. Ex-Gay Watch has regularly documented how the leaders of Exodus and other ex-gay groups have consistently subjugated pastoral ministry to the pursuit of political goals, chiefly opposing gay rights. This has already cost them in Europe, where the organization’s increasingly political agenda led to several ex-gay ministries withdrawing their membership. Does Love Won Out, of which Exodus is an affiliate, need to bring on board such a bombastic personality who will lead them only deeper into the culture wars?

British-Canadian freelance writer, editor and creative with an interest in religion, LGBT issues, arts, film and horror. Editor of Prescot Online. Occasional contributor to The Guardian's Comment is free.

265 Comments

This perspective on Michael Brown helps to explain the political message that he delivered at his general session of the Exodus Freedom Conference last summer. If my memory serves me correct, he called for ex-gays to “share their testimonies” openly and often, in order to demonstrate that orientation change is possible for those who seek it. Such a testimony, he contended, should undercut the notion that sexual orientation is an immutable characteristic deserving of legal recognition and protection (according to logic shared with Randy Thomas).

Even if I’ve made an error in recalling his precise message, I remember clearly his call for those of us willing to “fight in this culture war” to stand at the end of his presentation and take an oath. Needless to say, it was the most chilling and uncomfortable moment at the conference for me.

I can’t imagine that his message will be much different for Love Won Out.

In my opinion, most missionaries that are “Jews for Jesus” are charlatans anyway. Figures he’d work for an ex-gay organization. Thank you for identifying his faith as “Christian.” That is indeed what it is.

Messianic Jews are not Jews. They are Christians. specifically, they are evangelical Christians backed by evangelical organizations. Most Messianics are gentiles trying to get “closer” to Judaism, but in fact many end up farther away, b/c the theology of Messianic Judaism is no different from the fundamentalist theology of evangelical Christianity. Most of the tactics missionaries like Dr. Brown use include dressing up fundamentalist Christian beliefs to look like what could be called Ashkenazi Judaism – Eastern European Judaism, like what you see walking down the street in Brooklyn. In addition, this is how most would picture a stereotypical religious Jew: black hat, long black coat, skullcap, maybe side-curls, beard, brisket on shabbos, bagels for breakfast… which frankly, is insulting to the diversity of the Jewish culture.

My explanation might be a bit lengthy; but I feel it is necessary to explain Messianic Judaism from the traditional Jewish point of view. This sect of “Judaism” is almost entirely a modern phenomenon, not an ancient one as they would have you believe – and as a result, it’s had a devastating effect on my people – especially young people who are in college, like me. It is a subject very close to my heart.

I didn’t see Messianic Judiasm as an alternative for identifying Dr. Brown as a Christian. Hence my puzzlement at your original comment — I perceived your use of Christian as a derogatory moniker for people with fundamentalist Pentecostal beliefs like his.

Does Love Won Out, of which Exodus is an affiliate, need to bring on board such a bombastic personality who will lead them only deeper into the culture wars?

That’s a very good question Dave. I guess it depends on what Exodus is looking to accomplish. It seems to me that Exodus has been on the offensive against gay people from the beginning. Isn’t thier purpose to eradicate the gay thing? With Exodus new goal to add 10,000 churches to their membership roster, looks like they’re building and army. The purpose of an army is to destroy, take over and dominate, not save. So I would say: “yeah, they can use all the “bombastic” ‘warriors’ they can get.

It does rather make you shake your head in disbelief that Brown can use such militaristic language and not expect people to make the connection, yes.

It seems to me that Exodus has been on the offensive against gay people from the beginning. Isn’t thier purpose to eradicate the gay thing?

Michael Bussee, who was a founding member of Exodus (and is now openly gay), contended the opposite on a recent thread. Their purpose was pastoral ministry. If they really want their purpose now to be to fight gay rights and oppose gay people politically, then yes, maybe Brown is their man. I and others are hoping there might come a crunch point where they ask whether they’ve really been heading in the right direction.

Paul asked: “It seems to me that Exodus has been on the offensive against gay people from the beginning. Isn’t their purpose to eradicate the gay thing?”

No. Here was our original intent:

(1) To let gay people know that Go loved them, even if the Church didn’t seem to.

(2) To exhort the church to show some love and compassion to gays inside the church and to those who were struggling with issues of sexuality and spirituality.
(3) To educate the church that gays were not child molestors, demon-possessed our mentally ill — something I was hearing a lot at Melodyland and other conservative/charismatic churches at the time.

(4) To provide a safe place to Christians with gay feelings to come together, meet each other, share their experiences, study the Bible, sing, pray — and try to figure out what God expected us to do about being gay.

(5) Finally (and not primarily) to convey the hope that God could and would “change” us (help us become straight) if we truly followed him.

That’s it. The “offensive” against the rights of gays and EXODUS’s distressing detour into politics came later.

Why, oh why is EXODUS involved in politics? This was never the intent of the founders, several of whom have expressed their complete dismay that EXODUS has lost sight of its original vision — to communicate God’s unconditional love to GLBT people.
It makes my heart sick. SHAME on EXODUS.

I believe Michael Busse when he contends that “their [orignal?] purpose was pastoral ministry.” However, be it pastoral ministry or holy war, the purpose of both is to eradicate the gay thing. The only difference is technique, the goal is the same. I see no conflict of purpose.
I wish I did know. We made it policy and practice to avoid ANY political stance or entanglement — rather like Alcoholics Anonymous.

I don’t see the “pastoral” approach to tgt as any less destructive than the all out frontal assault, but I think they are both fighting the same “cultural war.” Since the mutual goal of both the warrior and the pastor is to destroy tgt, the only conflict I see is a conflict of egos, which I think is revealing.

I disagree. Here in the UK, I have a lot of respect for the True Freedom Trust, the main evangelical “ex-gay” ministry. Their focus is clearly pastoral support. They don’t blithely promise “change,” and the leaders I have spoken to are candid about their own sexual attractions. Their ministry is to other Christians who acknowledge their homosexual orientation, but don’t believe “practicing” homosexuality is right. They aren’t involved in any political activity, and in fact gave up their Exodus affiliation (along with several other European ministries) because they baulked at that sort of thing. Generally, they go about their thing without affecting my rights as a gay citizen.

That is worlds apart from the activities of Love Won Out and Exodus.

As much as I wish – for the sake of their own contentment – they’d acknowledge they can have happy gay partnerships and be Christian, I know that’s not going to happen. But in the meantime, I can’t equate what they’re doing with “eradicating the gay thing.”

Thanks for the profile on Dr. Brown. In the Throckmorton site conversation I found Michael Brown to be the least honest conversational partner I’ve ever tried to engage.

By that I do not mean that he outright lied (though I do believe that he did) but rather that his intent at no time was ever to engage in dialog. Every sentence was crafted as a tool of war to try and diminish and destroy the arguments of his enemy.

He tried to set out traps. For example, in one instance he quoted someone and asked if I agreed. Knowing it was a trap, I carefully established what portions of the quote I accepted and which I qualified. He then acted as though I said yes and provided the real quote which he had changed a word in to somehow try and equate homosexuality with pedophilia.

I deliberately chose not to argue over his pigtrail tangents. I would not discuss incest or ephebephilia or any of the rest.

I told him the only topic of interest was how his policies would impact the actual life of a real gay person, me. But this was the one single discussion he refused to have. He was unwilling to say exactly what his view of the world would do to me, Timothy. Hundreds of posts later, he could not go there – I suspect because he knows that his goals are cruel and would never stand up to public inspection. He could not say, “Timothy, if I got my way you would…”

And amusingly, after I had said that I was no longer going to participate, he still went on and on insisting I answer his questions. He said he would not respond to anyone until I answered him. It was rather childish and silly.

Frankly, Dr. Brown is frightening. While I hesitate to suggest a psychopathic mentality, I do believe that he lacks the capacity – or at least the will – to empathize with those he labels as his enemy.

And as best I can tell, he truly sees gay people as his personal enemies. And I think that I am not being extreme to say that I think he hates “the homosexual agenda” and, I suspect, gay people in general. Any harm that comes to a gay person is deserved and justified.

He associates with the most extreme anti-gays and spreads their bile and venom. Truly, if Exodus gets in bed with this man they can no longer claim to be anything other that a product of the Culture War. They can stop saying that they oppose the cruel way that the church treats gay people, because there is no limit to what Dr. Brown would say in his efforts to demonize gay people.

I hope and pray that some of the member ministries will see where Exodus is going and leave them to form another entity, one based on ministry and compassion.

This is Michael Brown here, hoping to join in the conversation soon. There are some minor, factual inaccuracies in Dave’s article, but I appreciate his attempt to present me in what he would consider a fair manner. Hopefully, I can bring some further, useful perspectives to his article in the next few days.

As for some of the comments of the commenters here, I’ll do my best to set the record straight ASAP. As always, I’m more than willing to take flack for what I do say and what I do believe as well to be corrected when I’m in error. On the other hand, when things are falsely attributed to me (as in some of the comments here), I try to set the record straight. Certainly, there are enough things that do divide us, but there’s no reason for myths to divide us even further

As for Timothy’s just-post comments, I find them truly extraordinary and would like nothing more than for open-minded people to read through the Throckmorton blog, cited in the article, and look at my interaction with Timothy. In the case at hand, his perception of reality is so far removed from factuality as to be absolutely chilling to me.

So that people here can get to know me in my own words, I copy here my closing words on the long thread on the Throckmorton blog. It really does reflect who I am.

Michael (the quote follows here)

The biggest thing I take away here [from my time on the blog] is the fact that without long term, personal relationships, or, at the least, without more face to face, offline dialogue, it will be difficult for me to be trusted by these men and women. Moreover, I don’t entirely blame them for that, given their worldview, given their understanding of the “hostile” position I take, given the fact that to them, I am undermining their humanity, their civil rights, indeed, their very relationship with God, even claiming to stand in God’s place (in their eyes). Thankfully, through the years, I have built up some very solid relationships with rabbis and Jewish “counter-missionaries,” people who still oppose what I stand for but count me as a friend (and I the same with them) after being quite antagonistic to me in the past, now with genuine respect and love on both sides of the divide. I hope the same thing will happen here, and in that spirit, I make this closing comment.

It is with care and concern before the Lord that I take any of the stands that I take, and I never do so without much introspection and, often, genuine pain, not wanting to hurt the GLBT community more than it has been hurt, not wanting to reflect my heart rather than God’s heart, not wanting to be a poor witness of Jesus, not wanting to reject those that He is affirming, and always wanting to be sensitive to the voice of the Spirit, the voice of conscience, and the voice of the disenfranchised. And while awaiting the ultimate day of accounting before God’s throne, I bring myself before Him (often daily), asking Him to examine my heart, my life, my motives, my responses, my words, my actions, praying for both mercy and forgiveness where I fall short and for courage to stand where His truth requires it, regardless of the cost or consequences. More than that, I cannot do.

I don’t think we’re really far apart on this. I agree that there is such a thing as pastoral support for acknowledged gays who consider the “sin” is to have sex with a guy, not their inclination to do so. I can see now that that is what you believe Michael was describing as Exodus’ original intent.

I don’t agree that Exodus or Love Won Out has ever been that because of their fundamentalist roots. I don’t think they have reversed their approach so much as they have evolved. I can’t really prove that, it’s just been my own experience, which admitedly does not go back to their beginning but does go back 20 years. What does seem clear is that the “pastoral” types have given up “their Exodus affiliation” because they balked at Exodus’ methods. Exodus seems content to lose these people as supporters, yet they want to grow by “10,000.” Instead, they are inviting the warrior types to join and lead them. I do think their purpose is to eradicate the gay thing and I don’t believe they will reverse and become pastoral. I am not surprised when they add a Michael Brown to their ranks.

It all depends on whether you believe that the whole gay thing has anything at all to do with religion. I admit the possibility in some cases, but more and more, I can only see the obvious motivators– hate, fear, ignorance prejudice, personal issues bettr worked out through others than oneself, etc.

Just because someone insists that “X” is his religious belief, even citing scripture, does NOT make that a true statement.

and it certainly doesn’t make it right. As queen Latifah put it so elegantly: you’re gonna see a whole lot of ungly coming from a whole bunch of stupid.

I checked out the Ex-Gay Agenda and to my surprise (sarcasm) there isn’t much there for the struggler (“overcomer”). The gay guy there trying to overcome his orientation has 45 minutes scheduled just for him.

But the Culture Warrior has something scheduled for every minute of the day. I guess they know their audience.

The order of the posts seems to have changed…just read your entry. Thank you for the clarification. I had no idea and am really shocked that such a group could have existed at Melodyland. It’s a shame it didn’t last.

Moderator Note: The comment above by the subject of this post Michael Brown was caught by the spam filter and was only released just now. Comments following and up to this one were made without having a view of Mr. Browns comment.

I’d like to comment on this thread, but am going to find it difficult if I don’t know how one defines terms, or how one judges what a persons intentions or hidden thoughts are, their motivations etc. I guess the question is best summed up as: What does a person who believes the bible forbids homosexual acts, who believes that he may have limits to what he can say about homosexuality in the future at his pulpit for example (whether he is wrong or right), and he speaks out against what he thinks may limit has ability to speak about his understanding of what the bible says about homosexuality, but who truly loves gays and sees them as people of God, even though he disagrees with homosexuality in any affirming sense? What would he look like, or how would we know he doesn’t hate GLBT people? I think if you answer that, I’ll understand the issues better and can hopefully chime in a little.

1) It was Kenneth Hagin, Jr, not his famous father who made the unfortunate comments cited by Dave Rattigan. This is just for clarification.

2) My book, Revolution: The Call to Holy War, has almost nothing to do with GLBT issues. Moreover, it is a specific call to renounce violence and anger and to take up our crosses and follow Jesus.

3) While it is true that there were some critics who maligned the Brownsville Revival (as is common in every revival movement), and while there was a hit piece on the revival published in the local newspaper (that was recognized as such in the community), not even critics associated Brownsville with bizarre things like “animal noises” or other phenomenon like “hysterical laughter.” The movement emphasized holiness and repentance, and to this day, there are about 200 missionaries serving humanitarian and spiritual needs around the world that our school trained and sent out as a direct fruit of the revival.

4) My message at the Exodus conference is readily available; it is not accurately represented by the posters here.

5) As for my e-interaction with Alvin not refuting his book, I would be happy to release the contents of it with his permission. His book is fraught with serious judgments and misrepresentations (in the midst of some worthwhile observations), and unbiased readers of our interaction would find plenty of factual data that I submitted to him that controverts points of his book. Should his book gain sufficient readership, I’ll post a detailed review.

6) It is ironic that in my Exodus message, I quoted from Dr. Mel White who wrote, “Jesus said, ‘Love your enemies.’ Love demands that we quit cooperating with those who oppress us. It is time for a campaign of relentless nonviolent resistance that will convince our adversaries to do justice at last. They have assumed that we are infinitely patient or too comfortable to call for revolution. For their sake, and for the sake of the nation, we must prove them wrong.” So, it is OK for Mel to call for a “revolution” while it is wrong for me to call for a Jesus revolution? Why isn’t Dr. White being excoriated on this website for his rhetoric?

7) I’m fully aware that I am, for the most part, guilty as charged here before the conversation even begins, and that whatever an “insider” posts against me will be assumed true – which probably happens within any camp with sharply drawn convictions – but for those would actually like to take the time to know where I stand (as opposed to the mythical Michael Brown presented by Timothy and others), why not listen to my interview on Queer Channel Radio on San Francisco? I don’t expect to convince you, but I think you’ll gain a more accurate perspective of who I am than from what is being posted here. Then, if we differ, it as least based on truthful differences, not fictional ones. For the interview, go to: http://www.queerchannelradio.com/cc-common/podcast.html and look for the Dec. 2 interview, first hour.

I hope to interact further as time permits. Thanks for listening! (Please forgive any typos.)

What does a person who believes the bible forbids homosexual acts, who believes that he may have limits to what he can say about homosexuality in the future at his pulpit for example (whether he is wrong or right), and he speaks out against what he thinks may limit has ability to speak about his understanding of what the bible says about homosexuality, but who truly loves gays and sees them as people of God, even though he disagrees with homosexuality in any affirming sense?

The first thing he would do is to commit to not lying. He would decide that he would not protray gay people in a false light.

Second, he would commit to treating gay individuals or couples (whom he thinks are sinning) no worse than heterosexual individuals or couples whom he thinks are sinning. For example, if he’s willing to allow the state to recognize a Satanist marriage, he cannot then argue God and faith as a reason to deny gay persons the same rights he allows in Satanists solely due to their opposite-sex nature.

Third, he would ask himself whether his intentions, goals, plans and political efforts would have an impact on gay persons and if he would like it if somehow gay persons came to power and did this to him instead. If he wouldn’t like it, he’s ordered by Christ not to do it to others.

Fourth, he would recognize that he is not God and that it is immoral to force his religious beliefs on others and society. This especially holds true for areas in which there is great disagreement about Scriptural interpretation.

Finally, Ivan, he would seek honest communication based on a desire for real discource and a drive for empathy.

That would be a good start.

You see, Ivan, I respect that others differ in matters of faith. But I absolutely demand that they allow me the same rights and priveleges to believe and observe my faith unhindered by their meddling.

Your lying about point 3 Michael. In 1995 your former Pastor John Kilpatrick said “Laughter” was a manifestation of the Holy Spirit. Michael, isn’t your book about your time in Brownsville called “From Holy Laughter to Holy Fire?”

Brownsville is just a carry-over of the “Latter Rain” movement wholly condemned by the First Assembly of God Church. I know that Michael, and so should you.

First of all, Europe, Schmurope! The American Evangelicals/Fundamentalists have in all likelihood seen Europe as a lost cause for many years, anyway. The main arm for them was the late Francis Schaeffer; today there is no solid base. IOW no great loss for Exodus especially when they have a “war” to fight at home.

Secondly, I wonder how the GLBTs of today — the younger ones just coming into realization of themselves are processing all this info. Are they truly going to these conferences as wet behind the ears as I was going into that Homosexuals Anonymous meeting room back in the mid to late ’80’s?

Perhaps as some from time to time have suggested in various venues — when one’s sexual orientation will not budge — how blessed is the distraction of being part of a “bigger picture”. To put it starkly: I may be going into a gay bar tonight, but by golly, when the Conference rolls around, I can be part of a group setting extolling the “virtues of straighthood”.

And Exodus surely knows this: if not on a conscious, then surely on a subconscious level. *Why* did they change from one on one support to politics? IMHO the answer is right there.

Since your only source of doctrine is derived from the Bible, can you show where that is stated in Scripture?

It is time for a campaign of relentless nonviolent resistance that will convince our adversaries to do justice at last. They have assumed that we are infinitely patient or too comfortable to call for revolution. For their sake, and for the sake of the nation, we must prove them wrong.”

Who are your adversaries? and what is it that you must prove is wrong about them? When did Christ get interested in saving nations instead of individual souls?

So, it is OK for Mel to call for a “revolution” while it is wrong for me to call for a Jesus revolution? Why isn’t Dr. White being excoriated on this website for his rhetoric?

As for a “Jesus Revolution,” Jesus beat you by about 2000 years on calling a “revolution” but he did not seem to envision it as you seem to.

Jesus said, “I say to you, Love your enemies; do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you.

“Love your enemies: do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return, and your reward shall be great, and you shall be the children of the Highest; for he is kind even to the unthankful and to the evil.”

As for my e-interaction with Alvin not refuting his book, I would be happy to release the contents of it with his permission.

With or without his permission, this thread is not about Alvin’s book or your discussions with him.

As to your comments on the facts of the story, we will most certainly check the sources, but none of what you mentioned, even if inaccurate, detracts from the main issues. We will post what we find either here or in a follow up post.

There is an enormous amount of material expressing serious concern for issues surrounding the Brownsville Revival. There is no single “hit piece” nor is much of it from local papers.

So, people here are allowed to post whatever they want and represent me however they want, but I’m not allowed to respond to them? This is a little baffling to me. If their comments are fair game, why aren’t mine? If Alvin can make a statement, can’t I interact with it?

As for the “hit piece” comment, I got that from a Wikipedia article with reference to how some Christian leaders viewed a series of articles in the local newspaper, which became fuel for the fodder of the critics.

As for the specific points I mentioned with regard to the revival, of course I agree: That does not detract from the main points, but remember: I was not the one who wrote the article mentioning Brownsville, nor I was the one who falsely characterized. And just for the record, every service was video taped — amount to more than 1,000 meetings — so people don’t need to rely on hearsay. And I was there for about 800 of the meetings, so I do know whereof I speak.

That’s Mel White’s quote you’re refuting, not mine. Please re-read the post where I cite it. So why would I defend his quote?

As for Jesus beating me to the punch in terms of using the concept of revolution, of course we know that he didn’t use that exact word — but I agree with you fully. He was a revolutionary, and he called us to overcome evil with good. That’s the message I preach, and I devote a whole chapter of my Revolution book to that subject.

The very words of Jesus you quote are ones I often share with our students — and ones with which I challenge myself. Amen!

I know I’m being portrayed a certain way here, but if you’ll read what I’ve written in full and in context, and if you’ll listen to the related messages, you’ll see that I concur with you.

Here’s a great quote from H. S. Vigeveno in his book Jesus the Revolutionary: “Revolutionary, indeed, this mission, to begin with a cross and sway the whole world through suffering love. Revolutionary to build a Church on the sacrifice that offers man forgiveness and atonement with God.”

May I ask where you got the idea that I’m a jihadist? Are you serious in using that term? My book, Revolution, is a call to change the world by preaching the gospel and laying down our lives. I have a whole chapter devoted to the words of Jesus to put down our swords — the words he spoke to Peter in the very account you mention!

I deplore tactics of violence and anger and intimidation, and if you’ll ever listen to my lectures regarding GLBT issues, you’ll hear a gracious tone from me. That’s also why I issued a public apology to the GLBT community of Charlotte for our insensitivity to many of the struggles experienced by the gay community when they come into our churches.

Of course, you might strongly disagree with where I stand on moral and cultural issues, but I am not a political activist, I’m a gospel activist.

You wrote: “Your lying about point 3 Michael. In 1995 your former Pastor John Kilpatrick said ‘Laughter’ was a manifestation of the Holy Spirit. Michael, isn’t your book about your time in Brownsville called ‘From Holy Laughter to Holy Fire?'”

Franc, first, I don’t lie (contrary to some of the accusations here); second, all of us at Brownsville believed that joyous laughter was a potential manifestation of the Spirit, and on occasion, we saw it happen in our services, but it was actually quite rare, and we were not known for it (I don’t recall in 800 services ever seeing any of us in leadership or on the platform overcome with “holy laughter”). We were known for strong repentance preaching and much weeping, and the manifestations we were criticized for had to with falling and shaking, not laughing. It was evangelist Rodney Howard-Browne whose meetings were known for “holy laughter.” Third, the title of my book proves that very point. It came out three months BEFORE the revival in Brownsville, and it called for people to move on from holy laughter and move into holy fire – meaning repentance and holiness. That’s why I was involved in Brownsville!

As for Brownsville being a “carry-over of the ‘Latter Rain’ movement,” which was rejected by the Assemblies of God, to the contrary, there is no historic connection between the two, and the Brownsville Revival took place in an Assembly of God church, with the blessing of the Assemblies national leadership. I personally met with Thomas Trask and the other senior leaders, who were thrilled with what happened in our midst. In fact, it was the Assemblies of God that loaned the church money to help our ministry school purchase a campus in Pensacola. That’s how much they believed in what was happening there.

Mr. Brown wants to deny gay and lesbian people the right to marry (as well as civil unions and domestic partnerships), wants to deny gays and lesbian equal protection under the law (job discrimination and hate crimes protections), and wants to deny gays and lesbians the right to adopt children (and by extension the right of a child who would be adopted by a gay parent the right to having a parent), but he isn’t a political activist. Mr. Brown, that would be telling a lie. You cannot devote yourself wholeheartly to public political causes and claim you are not being political. Trying to cover your comment with some cute “gospel” semantics is still a lie.

Also, if you are going to actively call for discrimination against gays and lesbians don’t start claiming that you are the victim and your rights are being infringed when you are called a bigot and a homophobe. Sure, you have your right to free speech, and those who would be victimized if your views were to prevail also have the free speech to call you on bigotry.

Regarding Michael Bussee’s post on the original purposes of Exodus, according to everything I understand, that remains their purpose and intent. I have been very impressed by their integrity and by their extraordinary gentleness towards those in the GLBT community. The fact that I spoke at one of their conferences in no way points to a change in direction for them, but since their conference was called “Revolution,” I felt that I should bring a message on developing a revolutionary mentality, also encouraging those who may thought of themselves either as victims or as needing healing to recognize that their lives could make a difference. (BTW, just as a point of reference, I also did a breakout session at the Exodus conference on “Helps to Holiness,” dealing with biblical principles for overcoming sin and temptation.)

As for Love Won Out, I was invited to attend their conference in Indianapolis last November to get a feel for how they operated. I had high expectations but those expectations were exceeded, and I still remember how the gentleman who led the youth track was so burdened for the kids there, wishing he could just take them home to his family and help them work through their struggles. In the back room where we sat and had some refreshments, that became a focus of discussion: Compassion for the kids and how to serve them better. Throughout the day, I was greatly blessed by the tone and attitude of the speakers, and again, the purposes of LWO remain clear. As I understand it, a small portion of the day is devoted to addressing some of the related cultural issues, since a small percentage of the crowd comes with an interest in these things, and that’s where my focus will be in the two breakout sessions I’ve been asked to do in Memphis.

You ask how I could use such militaristic language and not think that people would take it the wrong way, but in reality, I think it’s the article that you wrote that gives people the wrong impression. As an author and public speaker, I’m quite careful in the way I craft language, and because I speak of “revolution,” I constantly explain what I mean by it (probably ad nauseam to those who hear me a lot). And throughout my Revolution book – including two specific chapters out of thirteen – I point to the kind of revolution I’m talking about. Hundreds of thousands of people have heard me preach on these themes for more roughly ten years now, and multiplied tens of thousands have read my articles and books related to the “revolution” theme – and I have received more negative comments about the revolution message and its alleged violent overtones (including jihad!) on this thread than I received from those who heard me and read my books over the last ten years.

What does that tell you? It’s the way you crafted your article and the audience for whom it was written, and so, people are reacting mainly to what you wrote and to the way you portrayed me (even with the ridiculous “animal noise” accusation which never happened in five years in Brownsville nor would it have been tolerated for a minute). Before I flew out of town today, I sent my wife the link to your article. She is my worst critic and always happy to point out to me when I’m rightly accused of something. She read the article and said, “This is so frustrating. He’s giving a completely false impression of you.” So, people are reacting to the way you portrayed me more than to my words in context. And, since you would be very sensitive to what you would perceive as the demonizing of the gay community by the religious right, I would hope that you would be sensitive to the same.

Having said that, I realize that with all my material out there, you could have been much more unfair to me and painted an even uglier picture of me, and I honestly appreciate that you didn’t do that. I wrote to Dave Roberts and told him that as well.

I do think, however, that your readers should know that among the recent things I did in Charlotte was invite gay and gay-affirming clergy to my home church to have a public dialogue with me on the issue of “Can you be gay and Christian?” I assured them would be no gay bashing or hate speech – in fact, when a local cult member got up and asked why we don’t put homosexuals, Sabbath breakers, and adulterers to death, I rebuked him publicly for his position – and offered them equal time to present their views with me. They decided to boycott the event, but the first thing I told the media earlier in the day and then those attending that night was, “The first reason I’m doing this is to send a message to the gay and lesbian community that WE DON’T HATE YOU. The second reason is to break down the barrier that churches have against gay people, as if they’re the worst of sinners and as if people would get the cooties if they got near them.” Now, I understand that because I do not believe that you should have the “civil right” to marry someone of the same sex and because I do believe that homosexual practice is sin, I will still be considered hateful by many. But that does lead to the question of, “Is there anything I can say or do short of fully affirming you as a gay man that will not be considered hateful?”

Is there anything I can say or do short of fully affirming you as a gay man that will not be considered hateful?”

If you truly preach the Gospel message, in which, above all, Christ insisted comprised of love of God, love of neighbor, and love of self, and that the love of neighbor comprised of loving them as you love yourself,

then would not wanting what you want in your life – a life-long partner, someone whom you can express yourself to in a physical, emotional, and spiritual way … if that is a form of loving yourself by taking care of your physical, spiritual, and emotional needs by completing yourself with a mate, then how can you deny that to your gay neighbor and still claim to proclaim the Gospel? Your love for your gay neighbor is then incomplete if not absent because you require us to not have what you would want for yourself.

You claim that homosexual sex is a sin, and yet not all Christians have drawn the same conclusion. And we could play “Hang the Heretic” all day throwing Bible verses at each other, but the point is, the Church is being put to the test – do you REALLY love your neighbor in an equal way, or is the Church going to talk its way out of it? Is a gay person allowed to be treated with the same respect and rights as any other member of the Church, or is he to be forever the one in the Church that everyone points and stares and says, “We love you but hate what you do” if he even be allowed in the Church at all.

So, people here are allowed to post whatever they want and represent me however they want, but I’m not allowed to respond to them? This is a little baffling to me. If their comments are fair game, why aren’t mine? If Alvin can make a statement, can’t I interact with it?

Interact all you want, but we aren’t going to allow either of you to introduce discussions you had elsewhere, about someone else’s book, to a thread about Dave’s post. The victim approach is not very appealing.

even with the ridiculous “animal noise” accusation which never happened in five years in Brownsville nor would it have been tolerated for a minute

So you are saying that the architects of the Brownsville Revival (pastor, associates, you?) did not admire and agree with what happened at the “Toronto Blessing”?

As for the balance of your last comment, are you simply saying you aren’t bad, you are just drawn that way? I’ve been reading a lot about you Mr. Brown, and Dave’s post is extremely, incredibly tame in comparison. Very few of the people about which we write are listed on cult information sites.

I’m sure we all wish we could be the sole arbiter of how our work and lives are presented to the world, but often others see us in a more accurate, if less flattering, light.

On a technical note, please try to limit the length and scope of your comments. There are times when we all find it necessary to say a lot in one run, but doing this habitually makes it hard for others to keep track of the issues being discussed, and even harder to respond to them. People either don’t comment then, or the comments spiral out of control as they try to respond to each and every point. Thank you.

You make a good point about me being a political activist, and from your perspective, I accept that I am just that. My point was that I rarely get involved in voting issues (only sending out occasional e-notices about things to a small portion of my e-list) or the political process itself (in sharp contrast, say, with the HRC), and while I do hold to the positions of which you speak, the primary activities I engage in have to do with gospel-related teaching and preaching, like my upcoming lecture series on “Can you be gay and Christian” at the Blumenthal Performing Arts Center in Charlotte. I have friends who are active on Capitol Hill and lobbying congress, etc., but that’s not what I’ve mainly been involved in. Again, however, to be clear, I see your perspective and recognize why people would think I was bringing a “political” message at Exodus, e.g., whereas on my end, politics was the last thing on my mind.

As for my feeling like a victim, actually, I don’t, and I hope I don’t come across like that. I was asked directly on the Throckmorton blog how “gay rights” could infringe on mine, and I cited some free speech issues, based on things that happened in other countries as well as in America, and then tried to give some examples of how gay marriage issues could potentially infringe on my rights.

In any case, if people call me bigoted or homophobic, from their perspective and worldview I am, and that doesn’t bother me. I’ve been called worse! But I do object when I’m lambasted for things I never said or did, and then I try to set the record straight.

I spoke at the Exodus conference because for me, that’s part of the gospel: Jesus died to save us and forgive us and transform us, and I personally know people who really are ex-gay (and I’ve known them and their wives for years), and they were changed through an encounter with Jesus.

You ask, “If you truly preach the Gospel message, in which, above all, Christ insisted comprised of love of God, love of neighbor, and love of self, and that the love of neighbor comprised of loving them as you love yourself, then would not wanting what you want in your life – a life-long partner, someone whom you can express yourself to in a physical, emotional, and spiritual way … if that is a form of loving yourself by taking care of your physical, spiritual, and emotional needs by completing yourself with a mate, then how can you deny that to your gay neighbor and still claim to proclaim the Gospel? Your love for your gay neighbor is then incomplete if not absent because you require us to not have what you would want for yourself.”

I tell before God that I have agonized over these issues in prayer and reflection, having done my best to see things from your perspective and see the world (and the Scriptures) through your eyes. Although I was sure I knew what the Word taught about homosexual practice, I went back and pored through the original language texts, amassing a large library of pro-gay theologians and interpreters, also reading the painful stories of men like Mel White, or books like Bruce Bawer’s Stealing Jesus, or Mike Piazza’s Holy Homosexuals. But I must be true to my conscience and to the testimony of Scripture, and I’m convinced that the Bible (including Jesus himself) forbids homosexual practice and unions. Therefore, true love for my neighbor means that I tell you the truth, even if you consider it hateful. True love is not looking to win a popularity contest but to sacrifice one’s own interests for the sake of others, and the Jesus of the Scriptures (as best as I understand him) would not bless you with a same-sex partner for life but would so touch your own life that you would joyfully join yourself to an opposite sex partner for life, someone with whom you could not only be intimate but with whom you could produce offspring that represented your unique union.
I know that may sound harsh and judgmental to you, and I’m so sorry if it strikes you like that. After all, it’s easy for me to say, right? But grace and truth work together, and God’s Word draws clear boundaries. Also, I have read books in which the authors passionately argued for the change in societal views, arguing for the beauties of man-boy love, as was common in the ancient Greek world. The very thought of that might repulse you, as it does me, but what if that person asked you how you could deny them their right to “love”? You would say it was contrary to God’s Word, and I would agree. Can you see that I have to say the same thing to you?

You wrote: “You claim that homosexual sex is a sin, and yet not all Christians have drawn the same conclusion. And we could play ‘Hang the Heretic’ all day throwing Bible verses at each other, but the point is, the Church is being put to the test – do you REALLY love your neighbor in an equal way, or is the Church going to talk its way out of it? Is a gay person allowed to be treated with the same respect and rights as any other member of the Church, or is he to be forever the one in the Church that everyone points and stares and says, ‘We love you but hate what you do’ if he even be allowed in the Church at all.

Again, I am very sensitive to this question, and I go out of my way to speak to pastors about the need to reach out to gays and lesbians with compassion. But are you asking me to deny what I believe is true and right in God’s sight – based on many years of prayer and study and reflection and heart searching – because there are differences of opinion in the churches? In point of fact, I’m not stopping you from attending a church that blesses same-sex unions, and you certainly don’t need my blessing or approval, do you? And when it comes to national laws, I can vote and speak my mind, just like you. The fact is, I don’t run your life and you don’t have to answer to me. But I do have to be faithful to my own convictions before God. Can you understand that?

you certainly don’t need my blessing or approval, do you? And when it comes to national laws, I can vote and speak my mind, just like you. The fact is, I don’t run your life and you don’t have to answer to me. But I do have to be faithful to my own convictions before God. Can you understand that?

I only need God’s approval. But to say you do not run my life, in a way you do. By supporting laws that eat away at my rights, yes, you do run my life. You, and others like you, decide if I can keep my job or not, if I can get benefits and benefits for my partner, if I can visit my partner or not, what state I can live in and what states I need to look out for. You, and others like you, decide my status in this country. I wish it weren’t so. I wish I was treated as an equal, but the fact is, you and others like you put up a strong resistence for me and those like me to obtain my rights as an American citizen to the right of life, liberty, and the persuit of happiness, let alone my right as a Christian to fully participating in the Body of Christ.

But I must be true to my conscience and to the testimony of Scripture, and I’m convinced that the Bible (including Jesus himself) forbids homosexual practice and unions.

This is a Red Herring Michael, I don’t hear anyone telling you what to believe. If you believe as you say, then if you happen to be gay I would suggest you become celibate. Otherwise, in this country at least, your spiritual convictions stop there – you cannot force others to live by your convictions.

Also, I have read books in which the authors passionately argued for the change in societal views, arguing for the beauties of man-boy love, as was common in the ancient Greek world.

Another Red Herring. We don’t even allow minors and adults of the opposite sex to have intimate relationships. A minor is not considered one capable of consent in such matters, adults are. That you would use such a tactic is telling.

Again I have to ask you, try to be more concise. If you need to quote a previous comment, try to quote only the section that is pertinant. Also, we have provided buttons for you to help format your comment. If you are quoting, please highlight the quoted material and then click on the “bquote” button to format the selection properly. Otherwise it all runs together.

You wrote: “Interact all you want, but we aren’t going to allow either of you to introduce discussions you had elsewhere, about someone else’s book, to a thread about Dave’s post. The victim approach is not very appealing.”

Sorry I wasn’t more clear. I was asking for clarification, not portraying myself as a victim. I would ask, however, that you not rush to judgment (here, the “victim” comment).

As for our attitude towards Toronto, we appreciated much of what happened there (although I never went personally) but always took exception to their policy of letting anything go. We did not agree with some of the things they let happen there, and I addressed that in writing during the revival.

As for me not being “bad,” I was responding to Dave comment about my use of militaristic language, which has been interpreted negatively here but when I preach and teach and write about these things to evangelical audiences, I’m virtually never misunderstood.

As for being listed on a cult watch site, the sole reason for that was my part in the Brownsville revival, and if you’ll study the history of revivals, you’ll see that every major revival had massive criticism lodged against it. That’s par for the course. The fact is, the reason I serve as a visiting professor at leading seminaries and publish with major, Christian publishers and have articles in works published by Oxford Univ. Press and the like is because I’m a mainstream evangelical leader as opposed to some fringe, cult-like leader. Other readers have emailed me privately and stated, “They’re trying to make you like a whack job.” I’ve written twenty books; let someone take issue with those. I have many messages online. Let someone attack me for those. Fine and good. But are you going to tell me that Dave did not mention the animal noise canard with the intent of trying to paint a certain picture of me?

Do I expect to become a hero on sites like Ex-Gay Watch? Hardly! My only goal is that the truth is presented accurately, and then if I’m hated or rejected for that, I’ll take that on the chin.

Yes, I know there are differences in interpretation among scholars, but each of us have to work the issues through. If we feel sure about our conclusions, we have to act accordingly.

I do understand your point about how, in a way, I control your life, but again, I am absolutely convinced that marriage should be between a man and a woman, and therefore I cannot support your “right” to marry. As for stopping you from being part of the body of Christ, we both agree that Jesus is the Head of the Church and that he decides who is in and who is not, so isn’t that ultimately between you and him, not you and me? And if my church says that same-sex practice is sin, why would you want to go there? Wouldn’t you go elsewhere? So, in reality, I’m not stopping you, I’m simply telling you what I believe and practice.

But I do want to underscore that I am not insensitive to your questions and that, if I was convinced by the Word and Spirit of God that your position was right, I would champion your cause with passion. Obviously, you understand that I cannot.

You ask why I equate disagreement with hate. I personally do not, but with great consistency, when I share my views in forums such as this, I am accused of hate. My very point was that this equation is not correct, so I think that we agree, if I understood you properly.

I don’t follow your Red Herring comments. I’m being taken to task, it appears, for what I believe, and I’m simply stating that these are my convictions for which I have to give account to God. What’s the issue here? And where am I not being forthright about what I’m stating?

If I recall, you were the one on the Throckmorton blog who posted the Wikipedia article on same-sex unions in history, almost all of which involved man-boy examples.

But, so as not to disappoint you, sure, I’ll bring up the incest question: What do you tell the non-identical twins, separated from birth, then married in England with no knowledge of their relationship, only to find out they were twins and have their marriage annulled. Why they can’t marry the one they love? What if they pledged not to have children?

I do understand your point about how, in a way, I control your life, but again, I am absolutely convinced that marriage should be between a man and a woman, and therefore I cannot support your “right” to marry.

Do you have a verse that displays Jesus having any concern at all for what the civil government did or didn’t allow? And further, anything remotely similar to your stand that allowing gays to marry would somehow violate your rights?

I think a case could be made for the idea that it is more Christlike to forgo one’s own rights in an act of sacrifice rather than boldly and militantly claim them, particularly in a situation where loss of your own rights is a phantom argument.

I can tell you which scenario I think is more likely to display Christ to a gay person, without a doubt.

One other word about Brownsville: Readers can get a fair view of the positive and negative reports about the revival from the article on Wikipedia. My own views on the subject can be found in my book: The Revival Answer Book, giving guidelines for discernment. I’ll gladly send a free copy to anyone requesting it.

But shouldn’t the focus of this thread be on my views relative to GLBT issues? If Brownsville was heaven-sent (which I believe it was) or if it was off base (as critics alleged), how does that immpact our discussion either way? I noticed that questions about Jewish-Christian themes were quickly (and rightly) shut down, so I’m very happy to drop revival-related questions and focus on the relevant issues.

Michael:
If you mean marriage in the sense that I buy a partner in order to procreate, then I am in agreement that I would not want that kind of marriage for myself nor would I support such marriage for the gay community. If you meant marriage for political or economic reasons, again I would not find that favorable. If you mean marriage to only satisfy my sexual lusts, again, big no-no. All of these reasons have been legitimate in the Christian community and in Biblical times as well. All these are under the umbrella of marriage.

If you mean marriage as being a contract between two people to cohabitate in the same household to share expenses, duties, for one to support the other, and it is between two consenting adults, then that is the kind of union I would advocate for myself and the gay community at large.

If a church wishes to bless this type of union in a ceremonial way then each church has the right to establish the guidelines for such a blessing.

I guess the only way you would understand what gay people go through in this regard would be if you married an athiest woman or a woman from outside your faith, a Muslim or Hindu. I guarantee there would be plenty of places in the US that would deny you a hotel room. I’m sure there would be plenty of churches of your own denomination that would be more than happy to slam the door on you. Things might get uncomfortable for you at work. In other words, you would have the veil removed from your eyes and would see what hate really is and how it works.

Jesus made perfectly clear that marriage was between a man and a woman; as for civil government, he told us to render to Caesar that which belonged to him, which doesn’t specifically support my side or yours. In any case, are you telling me that Jesus would want me to vote for something that he is against? Just trying to understand you.

As for the question of whether gay marriage would infringe on my rights, honestly, that’s not my real concern. My rights are not the biggest issue; doing what is right and just is, and I do not believe that same-sex marriage is ultimately in society’s best interest. I know that you would differ with that categorically and points to studies by Eskridge and others to support your view. (Remember: the question about “my rights” was brought up to me on the Throckmorton blog, and I attempted to respond with specific examples; Dave Rattigan happened to cite this one tiny section out of more than 90,000 words posted.)

As for your closing point as to how a gay Christian would view me, no doubt you’re right, and that saddens me. In fact, I tell people that the first qualification for someone who takes on gay activism is that he would rather not do it, since in the process he will alienate people he is trying to reach. Still, I believe that, in the end, I will help people more by telling them the truth and standing up for what I believe is right. Don’t you ultimately do the same thing? Don’t you ultimately base your life on what you believe is true rather than what would make me think that you love me?

Time to sign out here. 3:41 AM is a bit steep for me, and I had no idea that today would have such surprises in store for me.

Very simple. In the first you said you believed the Bible forbid homosexual practice and unions and you had to follow your conscience. This is a Red Herring, or a distraction, because no one is asking you to forsake your convictions – don’t have sex with or marry a man, no problem for me. Your appeal objects to something that is not the issue in the first place.

Second, you tried to interject the argument against sex between men and boys as a parallel with your argument against sex between two adults of the same sex. Again, this is a distraction because we don’t allow sex with minors anyway, same or opposite sex, because they are not able to consent as an adult could.

And before you bring up any more absurd debating tricks (my favorite is could God make a rock so heavy he couldn’t pick it up), we are talking about adults who want the right to spend their lives with a person of the same sex because those are the only people they are able to be intimate and share the same bond which you are legally entitle do with someone of the opposite sex. No one’s rights are violated, and there are no risks of genetic issues. No one is asking for seconds and thirds (polygamy) they just want a chance at love with one person with whom they can fall in love.

But, so as not to disappoint you, sure, I’ll bring up the incest question: What do you tell the non-identical twins, separated from birth, then married in England with no knowledge of their relationship, only to find out they were twins and have their marriage annulled.

I would tell them that they don’t exist. This was a hoax. It was created to argue against gay equality and you are repeating the story for the same reason.

Really, Michael. It says a lot that you just repeat this stuff and don’t care in the slightest if it’s true or not.

If my memory serves me right, you chose not to answer many direct questions I asked during our interaction on the Throckmorton blog, and it’s only fair that you respond to me too, OK? Perhaps I can retrieve some of those questions and raise them again here.

As for your list, I’m turning in for the night and will be speaking over the weekend, but I’ll try to grab time to take up the posts again during my free time, including your list of 20 questions. They’ll make me think, which I appreciate.

Michael Brown dominated the thread concerning him on Dr. Throckmorton’s blog. Certainly the subject of a post is entitled to weigh in, but I have no desire for this to become the Michael Brown hour. I would like others to comment on the issues in the post, as I honestly see Mr. Brown as a divisive and troublesome figure to the Church in general, but certainly concerning gay issues (which seem to be his latest battle cry).

Of this I am wholeheartedly certain, Mr. Brown will not provide a positive influence at LWO, no matter which side of the issue one is on. Quite frankly, I have no idea how they could possibly have considered him.

I should also note that Mr. Brown has a book coming out, and while there is nothing wrong with doing so, we should consider that his recent voluminous activity on the web is connected with publicity for that book. What one finds when Googling an author is important, and there is now a lot of back and forth concerning gay issues attached to his name.

Thanks for the correction on Kenneth Hagin. I have amended the article on that point.

Regarding Brownsville, I just want to distinguish what I wrote from what other commenters (may) have written since. In my piece I mention the manifestations as part of the entire revival which you have defended (ie Toronto and its offshoots), not specifically Brownsville. I did not make any “ridiculous” claims about whether there were animal noises at Brownsville (I wouldn’t know offhand if there were or were not). I made a statement that I stand by:

… a revival [referring to the entire post-Toronto movement] that divided evangelicals and became known for the exotic behaviour of its participants, including hysterical laughter, fainting (being “slain in the Spirit”), “spiritual drunkenness,” shaking and animal noises.

Did it or did it not divide evangelicals? What did it become known for? I know this is a pain to those involved in the revival, but whether they like it or not, those things are what it became known for. Frankly, it would be greatly dishonest to describe the charismatic revival of the 1990s without mentioning the controversy, chiefly (perhaps almost exclusively) over the exotic manifestations.

If I’d wanted to make you look ridiculous, I could have done a much better job than such a relatively non-controversial statement. In fact, that whole second section is simply a profile of your career – I hadn’t even got to the critique yet!

You point out that the emphasis at Brownsville was holiness; in fact, there are some other issues I wanted to address in another article, and that will specifically tie in with your emphasis on personal holiness.

“6) It is ironic that in my Exodus message, I quoted from Dr. Mel White who wrote, “Jesus said, ‘Love your enemies.’ Love demands that we quit cooperating with those who oppress us. It is time for a campaign of relentless nonviolent resistance that will convince our adversaries to do justice at last. They have assumed that we are infinitely patient or too comfortable to call for revolution. For their sake, and for the sake of the nation, we must prove them wrong.” So, it is OK for Mel to call for a “revolution” while it is wrong for me to call for a Jesus revolution? Why isn’t Dr. White being excoriated on this website for his rhetoric?

“Why isn’t Dr. White being excoriated on this website for his rhetoric?”

An excellent point. In fact, gosh, golly gee, I never even thought to look at it that way.

If minorities who are vilified and oppressed can call for a nonviolent revolution to help end their suffering and oppression, why too should not their oppressors be allowed to call for a revolution to fight AGAINST THAT revolution?

What could be more equal and tolerant than to equate tolerance with intolerance?

Why indeed would the oppressor’s right to oppress, not be given equal consideration to that of their victim’s right to not want to be oppressed?

Such a salient question Dr. Michael Brown, do go on.

—
Oh, and P.S. “Jesus Revolution” coming from you, necessarily includes the oppression of every GLBT human being on the planet.
—
And again, please, let me do the honors:

Patrick (Emproph), your bitterness and prejudice continue to shine through. I feel that there is little I can say to show you of my sincerity. If you cannot accept the words I say that clearly show that my words to others do not speak louder than my words to you and others here, I am at a loss as to what to do. But I’m sure that my response will show that I have not changed the subject, ignored your point, or turned this back around onto you as attack for challenging me.

Michael, I don’t doubt that people who know you see you very differently, or that they don’t recognize you in my article. I don’t doubt that your evangelical audience sees you very differently from your gay audience. I don’t even – although some here and on the thread at Throckmorton’s site obviously do – doubt your sincerity.

If I’d wanted to do a flat-out character assassination, I certainly wouldn’t have explained so plainly in the article what you meant by “revolution”:

Brown’s disclaimer is that it is “a non-violent revolution based on purity, compassion, and sacrifice rather than one based on anger, intimidation, rebellion, and force,” … such language is clearly not meant in a physical sense …

The point I made in the article is that it’s still aggressive, militaristic rhetoric – and its being put into the service of denying gay rights. So you may not wish us physical harm, but how is a denial of our rights, couched in the language of war and revolution, meant to be taken, if not as aggressive?

You protest that Revolution! A Call to Holy War had “almost nothing” to do with LGBT issues. Yet the excerpt I read on your website specifically defines the “revolution” in relation to gay rights (among other moral and political issues). You even make the following slanderous accusation against gay activists:

… we have not yet seen the unbridled aggression of the homosexual movement (when it is challenged, it will become violently aggressive) …

This is far more than I accused you of! Where is your evidence for this outrageous charge?

As for the question of whether gay marriage would infringe on my rights, honestly, that’s not my real concern. My rights are not the biggest issue; doing what is right and just is, and I do not believe that same-sex marriage is ultimately in society’s best interest.

And you’ve based the damage to society’s best interests sheerly on strawman/red herring “arguments.”

Your arguments: The legalization of same-gender non-familial adult consensual marriage harms society because it would lead to:

Ephebophila (characterized as underage consent), The legalization of consensual adult relationships = the abolition of age of consent laws.

Incest, the legalization non-familial consensual marriage = the legalization of predation within the family unit “consensual familial marriage.”

And let’s not forget: Employees who’d be “offended” by having to take diversity classes, parents who would be “offended” by their children learning about the reality of homosexual persons and their relationships, and adoption centers having to give children who NEED homes, homes.

As far as I’m concerned, anyone who considers that last example to be an “ethical” position, doesn’t deserve to be taking care of children, let alone placing them.

So that’s SIX strawman/red herring arguments you’ve presented as “evidence” as to how gay marriage would harm society.

StrawMan (my def.), equate something good or benign with something harmful, and then condemn them both the same.

Red Herring, “presenting an argument that may in itself be valid, but doesn’t address the issue in question.”

Now, if you could indulge me, which I highly suspect you won’t, what exactly do you ACTUALLY have against gay marriage in regard to how it directly harms society?

How does any ONE person’s, or even any NUMBER of person’s, same-gender marriage, DIRECTLY affect your own, other than the fact that you would have to think about it, consider it, and talk about it as a fact?

Taxation without representation. This is your imposition without qualification.
—
P.S. Run for your lives everyone, something might lead to something!

I’m sure no one has ever said this before, but since unintended consequences are inevitable in all circumstances, we should never use our brains to determine the likelihood of them, and just stop doing everything.

Michael, the question about Mel would be relevant only if your aggressive language were the sole beef I have against your message. I haven’t argued that there is anything wrong with aggressive, or even militaristic, language in and of itself. On the contrary: in fighting oppression, injustice and abuse, it is quite appropriate.

However, you are using aggressive, militaristic language to deny the rights of GLBT people. There’s my beef. And the question posed by my article was whether Focus on the Family and Exodus really need more of that aggressive rhetoric.

as for civil government, he told us to render to Caesar that which belonged to him

Looks to me like Jesus was pretty clear about not being concerned about the civil government. Now, do you know of a single scripture that states that believers should be concerned about it, much less use the laws to mandate a moral stand of the church for it’s own sake?

Jesus was concerned about individuals. He counted on people to come to a saving belief in Him and govern their own morality, not have it legislated for them. People of good conscience can disagree on many things in scripture, this being one of them. Laws against such things are inherently unfair.

For instance, you can get a civil divorce, and any Catholics correct me if I am wrong, but doesn’t the Catholic Church ignore such divorces? They certainly appear to take marriage by the Church seriously:

… if a Catholic marrying either another Catholic or anyone else just decides to be married in some other Church or by a Justice of the Peace, that marriage is invalid. While such a marriage may have legal standing in the eyes of the state, it has no legitimate standing in the eyes of the Church.

So again, unless you want to strain the rather specious argument that same-sex marriage will somehow destroy society, then what business does the Protestant church or any other really have dictating civil marriage? Can’t they ignore it just as the Catholics would now ignore an opposite-sex civil marriage?

I think part of the problem is that, at least in Christianity, there is no consensus as to what marriage REALLY is and what constitutes a marriage. In the Roman Catholic tradition (for those who are in agreement with the Church’s anti-gay stanze) a marriage is between a man and a woman. BUT, for a Catholic, the marriage MUST be performed by a CATHOLIC priest. If they just get a civil union they may or may not be considered married depending on who you talk to, but technically they would NOT be married.

BUT, a Protestant couple (not Protestant-Catholic but both parties being Protestant) who are married by a JP would be considered a valid marriage by the Church.

Most Protestant churches would validate a marriage done by a JP without the blink of an eye, and most have no problem with one being of one religion and the other of another religion so long as it is in the Christian community.

Some Jewish communities (Emily help me out on this one) would not consider a Catholic marrying a Jew type marriage and vice versa even if the marriage was performed by a member of the clergy.

In other words, a couple that considers themselves married will not be considered married by some member of the religious society.

Another thing I want to point out is this … in Mexico, and most of the world, you get married twice – once by the religious institution and once by the civil authorities. In Mexico, after the religious ceremony, the couple, either the same day or on another day, either go to the courthouse or invite a judge to be there at the reception, to make their marriage legal by the state. If someone in Mexico gets married by the church, the government does NOT recognize the marriage. This is what separation of Church and state is because the government does NOT tell the Church what a Catholic marriage is … it lets the Catholic Church (or whatever Church is marrying a couple) it let’s that church decide on its own rules for marriage. The civil government has its own rules, and the two are separate.

In the US, there is no separation of Church and State in the realm of marriage. So why are some churches so against gay marriage? POWER. I think this is a big reason. In the Orthodox tradition, we would not have a problem with the government deciding on what it considers to a marriage because we already have our rules and what we would say would override the government anyway (at least in saying who is married and who is not) which is why I am confused why my anti-gay RCC and EOC brothers and sisters have jumped on board the Protestant/Evangelical anti-gay marriage band wagon.

Some Jewish communities (Emily help me out on this one) would not consider a Catholic marrying a Jew type marriage and vice versa even if the marriage was performed by a member of the clergy.

Intermarriage is strongly frowned upon in traditional Judaism. Many reform and some conservative communities are okay with (but do not sanction) intermarriage. The Orthodox require that the spouse convert before the wedding. Opinions are strong on this issue. In FACT, sometimes a rabbi is more likely to bless a same-sex union of two Jewish people than an interfaith straight couple!

With regard to my biblical convictions, that was not meant as a distraction. The Scriptures help me to form my life values, and the only I could endorse same-sex marriage (civil or otherwise) is to abandon my biblical convictions, since the Scriptures do address the issue itself (i.e., the definition of marriage).

My other arguments were not meant as debating tricks either. I’ve read the comments of lawyers fighting for adult incestuous relationships, e.g., and they’ve pointed to the changes in law re: same-sex marriage, along with raising similar, love-based arguments. I don’t raise these things as debating tricks but as relevant to the question of, “Why can’t I marry the one I love?”

You raised some other civil marriage questions in other posts, and I’ll try to catch up with those too.

“The first reason I’m doing this is to send a message to the gay and lesbian community that WE DON’T HATE YOU. The second reason is to break down the barrier that churches have against gay people, as if they’re the worst of sinners and as if people would get the cooties if they got near them.” Now, I understand that because I do not believe that you should have the “civil right” to marry someone of the same sex and because I do believe that homosexual practice is sin, I will still be considered hateful by many. But that does lead to the question of, “Is there anything I can say or do short of fully affirming you as a gay man that will not be considered hateful?”

Michael B,
This pretty much boils it down for me. If you could say the word, and by so doing, eradicate homosexuality from the face of the earth, would you do it?

As to your question “is there anything I can say or do short of fully affirming you….” Yes, you could take a neutral stance.

You ask if I could, would I eradicate homosexuality, meaning that all homosexuals would be fully-satisfied heterosexuals who felt complete and whole in that identity, the answer is yes, I certainly would. If I could snap my fingers and it would suddenly happen, and no one would go through feeling “different” as a kid and be subject to ridicule and then be unable to marry and produce offspring, certainly, I would.

If I could not do that, would I want all homosexuals to disappear or go away? God forbid. You are as human as I am and as loved by God as I am, and while we differ over the issue of “rights,” we are neighbors on this planet.

Unfortunately, despite the story being widely reported in the mainstream media, it has no substantiation, and it looks very likely it was just a myth. Even I (yes, I, the near-infallible writer of this article!) assumed it was true at first, as I read it in my daily paper. However, all the evidence suggests it was just hearsay.

Yes, we are neighbors, but you tend to be that sort of neighbor that wants to tell me what color I can paint my house, what kind of landscape I can have. You are the sort of neighbor who smiles at me with your lips then bad mouths me every chance you get.

As to lawyers using same-sex marriage as a means to justify their clients infidelities, lawyers will grasp at anything to secure a victory for their client. My father once had a lawyer who was able to get my dad off of a driving violation for passing a car in a school zone. The lawyer argued that there was traffic coming from the opposite side of the street. My father was passing those cars while in the school zone. Those cars were passing him. Why were those cars not cited? Because the law made no clear statement as to what “no passing” meant, since the law was vague, the judge sided with my father’s lawyer.

Using lawyers to justify moral standards is not the best way to present an argument.

since the Scriptures do address the issue itself (i.e., the definition of marriage).

The Bible gives a variety of marriage scenarios, few if any which would depict 21st century American marriage. And more importantly, it is the Church which, guided by the Holy Spirit, has decided what constitutes a marriage because obviosuly there are some endorsements of marriage in Scripture that the Christian community finds not in line with Christ’s message. And there are Christian communites, who, lead by that same Spirit, have understood that marriage can embrace more than just a means to reproduce, and that the sex of the persons envolved in not the issue.

If you read and understand Scripture to say that marriage is restricted to one man and one woman, then you need to state that – that that is what YOU BELIEVE SCRIPTURE is stating.

When I read the Scriptures, for example, I read it to understand that the Virgin Mary was immaculately conceived, yet there may be someone else on this blog who reads the same scriptures and comes up with the conclusion that she was not. I cannot claim Scripture says she was immaculately conceived, but rather that I believe it to be a truth and that there are scriptural passages that can support my case.

I agree you could have made me look far worse if you wanted to, and when I wrote to Dave Roberts yesterday (before posting), I said, “Actually, given the significant differences between us, I feel Dave R. did not try to misrepresent me, and I appreciate it.” And yes, I appreciated the fact that you explained that I was referring to non-violent revolution, while I understand that you will take my language as being quite aggressive to the extent you feel it is aimed against you.

The fact is that I have preached the revolution-themed message for years and, for the most part, it has had little to do with gay activism. And in reality, I almost never speak about issues of same-sex marriage when I preach. It came up on these blogs, to be sure, but I’m normally dealing with issues of what kids are being taught in schools or issues concerning freedom of speech in the work place (like the “natural family” case in Oakland) – in other words, where gay-related issues come knocking at our doors. But I fully understand that from your perspective, this guy suddenly shows up at the Exodus conference preaching “revolution,” he has a book on the theme, and now he’s going to politicize LWO. Is that an accurate picture? I suggest folks follow the messages I bring, along with the dialogue I’m having with Harry Knox of the HRC on Feb. 14 in Charlotte, and then judge for themselves.

As for my Revolution book, I wrote it in 2000, before I was seriously engaged in gay-related issues, and in 330 pp., there’s hardly a line dealing with the homosexual activism (even in the chapter you cite, it is one short comment out of 7,000 words). Is it slanderous? Based on my experience up to that time and some ugly things some of my friends and colleagues had encountered first hand in years past, it was certainly meant to be accurate. Would I write it in those same words today? That’s a fair question, and I will give it thought, but you might agree with me that the face of the movement has changed greatly over the years, becoming more family-oriented and less militant.

I accept your explanations about what you wrote concerning the revival, but the legacy of the revival, as I understand it and from what I have read (in books written about it) was renewal in many churches and a great harvest of souls. And, for the record, it was not an offshoot of Toronto. Did evangelicals divide over it? Of course, but show me one major revival in the last 300 years where that didn’t happen. Years before Brownsville, I had written about how revival inevitable brings division, just as the outpouring of the Spirit in Acts 2 brought division. As for questions about personal holiness, I look forward to them. If you haven’t read my book Go and Sin No More: A Call to Holiness, that’s a good place to start. It’s being reprinted soon, have gone out of print about a year ago, but I think you can find a cheap used copy on Amazon.

I have to take a break and may not be able to get back to all the questions. That doesn’t mean I don’t take them seriously, but of course, I’m just one man here with lots of things directed towards me and only limited windows in my schedule.

As for interacting with Emphroph, interested readers can go to the Throckmorton for our extended interaction.

I will reply to Timothy’s list of 20 items and then have to check out for a bit.

If I could snap my fingers and it would suddenly happen, and no one would go through feeling “different” as a kid and be subject to ridicule….

(By no means all gays have to endure this, of course, but certainly many do.)

However, since you can’t snap your fingers and bring this about, it seems that you are prepared to condone discrimination against us when we are adults and will do what you can to prevent or at least discourage us from forming meaningful sexual relationships with other gays/lesbians.

Thank you very much, Dr Brown. I think that you’ve made it clear exactly where you stand.

I’m not stopping you from living your life as you please, and I do fight against the mistreatment of gays and the demonizing of gays when I speak to pastors and leaders. But if I believe same-sex unions are wrong in God’s sight, I will not vote for them and work for them. To you, that’s discrimination; to me, that’s integrity. We obviously differ in a profound way, and we’ll have to leave it there.

I will say this, however. If I lived in a society where only same-sex marriages were recognized (obviously, a ridiculous hypothetical), I would still have entered into a lifetime commmitment with my wife, Nancy, even if there were no related benefits and even if our relationship was not recognized by law. And I would have done it in God’s sight as a holy thing just the same. Love would have been the sole, driving factor. I would imagine that some in the GLBT community feel the same and act accordingly with their partners, regardless of state recognition.

Michael, I would never want anyone to snap their fingers to rid the world of homosexuality. I would not be the same person if I was not gay. I could not put myself in other peoples’ shoes. As a gay man, sure I suffered, but it made me a much better person in the end. I think a lot of gay people early on want to make it go away, but after you get through those prime years of suffering, you realize it is worth it. It is like a baptism of fire. When I work with students who are underdogs (the abused, the challenged, the adult reentry student, the prisoner), I am much better equipped to help them because I understand some of the struggles they have gone through, the ways they were perceived.

Not only that, most gay people I have known in relationships have much stronger, longer lasting relationships than my straight friends. Part of that is because we don’t have the relationship convenances that straight people do. We can’t just marry and allow the courts and legal system to do with any problems we have. A recent study found that gay people even deal better in argument situations than straight people–one reason may be that we have more invested in the struggle–we don’t take our spouses for granted. While I appreciate the sentiment to help us out, I kind of like the fact that I am a much better person as a gay person than I would ever be as straight.

As for your list, I’m turning in for the night and will be speaking over the weekend, but I’ll try to grab time to take up the posts again during my free time, including your list of 20 questions. They’ll make me think, which I appreciate.

Well actually it’s a list of 20 potential anti-gay efforts but only two questions. Are there any that Michael Brown would not favor or wish successful? Are there any that he would oppose?

Nine hours and six of his comments later:

I will reply to Timothy’s list of 20 items and then have to check out for a bit.

I’m looking forward to his response. Perhaps there is some small area of agreement we may share.

You ask if I could, would I eradicate homosexuality, meaning that all homosexuals would be fully-satisfied heterosexuals who felt complete and whole in that identity, the answer is yes, I certainly would. If I could snap my fingers and it would suddenly happen, and no one would go through feeling “different” as a kid and be subject to ridicule and then be unable to marry and produce offspring, certainly, I would.
If I could not do that, would I want all homosexuals to disappear or go away? God forbid. You are as human as I am and as loved by God as I am, and while we differ over the issue of “rights,” we are neighbors on this planet

Michael Brown,

Thanks for answering. Yep, there’s the rub. While I am not a Christian, I know many here are. Many have reached a place where they believe that “God” does indeed affirm them in their gay identity. Mel White, who you quoted earlier, is among them. So, for these, your act of love is really an act of ignorance, and at least inadvertantly “hateful.”

My second point, suggesting that there is something short of “affirmation” if your beliefs forbid that, i.e., “neutrality.” For guys like me who cannot reconcile the God of the Tenach with the God of the gospels, let alone find a paradigm for living in the whole Christian bible, neutrality seems a fair proposition.

I won’t start or support a ministry trying to cure you of your belief that you know God and know what God wants. That’s fine with me. I’m pretty certain that if that God wants me to know what you know, that God can tell me in a way where I know it’s really “God” and not just someone or some book claiming to represent God. I won’t try to convert you to being gay, it’s okay with me that you’re straight. I won’t enact legislation trying to outlaw the practices that are part of your identity as a Christian. I won’t penalize you on your taxes because you marry a woman instead of a man.

I don’t need or want your affirmation, probably, any more than you want mine.

But I fully understand that from your perspective, this guy suddenly shows up at the Exodus conference preaching “revolution,” he has a book on the theme, and now he’s going to politicize LWO. Is that an accurate picture?

Too late Michael. Exodus has been essentially a political organization for a long time. As for LWO, I doubt it would exist in the absence of the political Culture War against gays that Focus on the Family has been engaged in for years.

So that people here can get to know me in my own words, I copy here my closing words on the long thread on the Throckmorton blog. It really does reflect who I am.

Loverly of course, but what I found most reflective of not only who YOU are, anti-gay-wise speaking, but also of those whom are like you, was most reflective in your last post to me about polygamy.

Polygamy actually does far less damage to these foundations than does the concept of homosexual unions.

Ergo, 99 men without wives – for a lifetime, because of 1 man with 100 wives, is LESS damaging to society than 2 gay people getting married.

Conceptually speaking, I’ll run with you, but you only win on paper. BUT, you DO win on paper. The problem is that you’re not honest / open enough to show your work in this regard.

That quote above is the best sentiment of sincerity that I’ve seen.. You at least hint at the admission that polygamy is seen by you as being “in line with” God’s creative intent.
—My view of how you see me and everyone, and everyone else like me for that matter.

Because the human soul is created upon physical conception, gender understanding and opposite attraction, HINGES on the genitals, or the “genetics” of that soul/body. Me, you, and everyone.

Ultimately, you don’t believe that there’s any such thing as a homosexual person.

You believe we are confused, and / or deluded, for what ever reasons. But you understand that we are all, each of us, individually, non-homosexual agenda-wise speaking, 100% convinced that we are not only not confused, but that we are also 100% certain that we were designed this way. You believe this much. You accept this much about us.

Thus, nature being God’s creation = “God’s creative intent for us,” which in a purely logical sense, means that men are positively charged and women are negatively charged. Physically.

Ergo, if you are born a male, even a “gay” one, you have a positive charge, and are therefore “attracted” to a negative charge, women.

If you are born a female, even a “lesbian” one, you have a negative charge, and are therefore “attracted” to a positive charge, men.

Simple enough, thus we are seen as too dumb to understand that our private parts dictate whom we should love, via God‘s expressed design. So be it.
—
By “rebelling” against God’s expressed design (creation itself), we are thus “rebelling” against God itself.

Despite the fact that this condition may be seen as an intentional design to the same gender attracted individual themselves, the depth of depravity of man’s fallen nature dictates that a positively charged male soul could indeed be “convinced” that they were “romantically” attracted to another male.

Or that a negatively charged female soul could indeed be “convinced” that they were “romantically” attracted to another female.

Because they are so convicted of their attraction, it would be unloving to say out loud, the depth of depravity that their “attraction” represents, the depth of depravity that their desire for love truly represents.

It is not up to us to convince them that their human desire to love and be loved, is truly sinful and offensive to God, for they cannot be reached. They are convinced that their love is real.

Even IF homosexual attraction turns out to be genetic, inborn, and / or immutable,
Even IF homosexual relationships lead to creativity and a more healthy society,

There can never be any doubt that this health and welfare is born of rebellion against God, and thus must be resisted at all cost. No matter how creative or solution-generating, gay couples may be.

A perfect world would be one with a heterosexual Ellen, and one with a heterosexual Elton, and one with a heterosexual Timothy, and one with a heterosexual Emproph.
~~~~

Now if I at least heard that much to my face from every virulently anti-gay activist, I’d have some respect for how well thought out their bigotry was.

Point being, that’s the kind of bigotry I can forgive, at least to the extent that it’s honest, honest enough to treat me as someone of equal worth. Even though it’s insulting to the core, the fact is, I can respect someone who has the guts, and the personal dignity to NOT be my friend about the matter.
—
I’m so desperate for honesty that I’ve become hypersensitive to hypocrisy.
—
The one thing this “rebellion against God” thing is missing, is evidence of evil. Same gender attraction, OR sexual expression, DOES NOT = MALICE.

Given that much, and if God is truly Love, how is it possible for my love to be a rebellion against love itself?

I have a very hard time with this snap your fingers and make a certain group change or disappear thing.

First, if I want people to think like me and be like me, am I doing it for THEIR benefit or MINE? If I want people to do things MY way is it for THEIR good or MINE? If, for example, I wanted everyone on this blog to be Orthodox Catholic, write only in Latin, finish each blog entry with a Hail Mary or some invocation to a saint, would it be to better them or so that I would feel more comfortable and not threatened everytime I mention something like Purgatory or Tradition?

Good intentions or not withstanding Michael, you want the GLBT population to conform to your way of living so that YOU will feel more comfortable, and those like you. Your interests are on self, not on others, not on your neighbor, not even on God as far as I can gather. You want the world to conform to your ideology so that you can then love your neighbor, not because you love him or her as yourself, but because they are exactly like you in religious belief, custom, and sexual behavior.

If you truly listen to the GLBT community speaking about our rights, our struggle for equality, you never hear us say that we want to TAKE AWAY rights from other groups NOR do we want to become superior to any group. But the same can not be said by you nor for those who follow you or adhere to your ideology and theology.

As Irene, Archie Bunker’s neighbor on All in the Family once said to Archie, and I say to you, “One good thing about being a Catholic is. . . the (anti-gay*) Protestants have got you.”

You were kidding with the nine hour comment, right? If not, please understand that I did have to sleep; I had an appointment; there were a few other posters I was trying to respond to; and it took a little longer to think through your list. Is that reasonable?

Also, I’m simply giving some “unofficial” responses to the list of very fair and practical issues that you have raised here. I am not saying these are my definitive views on all the above, but simply what I’m thinking at this moment, without being able to research some relevant legal and social issues. So, here goes.

Because #1 has been so politicized, I would like to see it overturned; however, I do not believe that the government should be getting involved in the private sex lives of its adult citizens (generally speaking), so I’m not for #’s 2, 14, or 17; yes to #’s 3, 13, and 15; not sure exactly what you mean by #4; I haven’t reflected much on #5 but would probably leave it as is; no to #6, but, I would not want that teacher to declare publicly they were gay or to set an overtly gay example for students; I don’t like #7 but would officially work to stop all violations of the law in terms of public lewdness; as for #8, if they’re part of a denomination that teaches homosexual practice is sin, then they should have their credentials removed, just like would happen with any other fundamental doctrinal tenet or practice that they reject; related to this, I would encourage #11; as for #9, not sure what you mean. For example, should a builder be able to fire a worker simply because the person is gay? Certainly not. On the other hand, should a dentist be able to fire a male receptionist who wants to wear a dress to work? Yes. And should a Christian bookstore be able to fire an out of the closet gay person whose values directly contradict those of the company? Yes, just like the local GBLT community center should be able to fire a vocal, very public born-again Christian who did not first disclose their beliefs and their desire to publicly “wear” those beliefs on the job site. As for #10, I’m not familiar with the related laws and the rights of a landlord, but on the surface of things, I would be against that, for sure; no to #16. I’m all for #12, especially in light of what is already in the schools today and what is on the media; I’m not a proponent of the public schools teaching kids about sex in terms of moral values (as opposed to the families doing it), so I don’t see #19 being done, but if there is to be teaching about homosexual practice, I would want it taught based on the morality of the Bible; not sure exactly what you mean by #18, but if you mean reading King and King to first graders, yes; no to #20; I don’t agree with much of the agenda of these advocacy groups, but they have the same rights to speak and act under our Constitution that I do.

I have a very hard time with this snap your fingers and make a certain group change or disappear thing.

While I understand your displeasure with Brown’s reply, I honestly can’t see much value in such an uber-hypothetical. In any case, his answer was hardly unanticipated from my view. If he thinks it’s all sin and outside God’s design, of course he would change it if he could. Maybe I am missing something on this.

As I have been reading this thread there are a few things I would like Mr. Brown to clear up for me.

As I see conservative Christianity (mainly Fundamentalist/Evangelical Christianity) I see a lot of hypocrisy within your own churches. So I want to know exactly how you feel as well as what other churches along the same lines feel about these issues.

As some here already know I bring up divorce and remarriage quite a bit. How do feel about those that have divorced and remarried (other than one being unfaithful to the other)? Do you tell those that have divorced that they must remain celibate now (according to scripture) that in remarrying is the continuous sin of adultery? Do you advocate laws doing away with no fault divorce and are you willing to use that same tenacity as you do with homosexual issues to fight against easy divorce? Many Christians I talked to no longer feel divorce/remarriage is a sin or no longer believe that its a serious sin.

What is your stance on the Prosperity Gospel? Do you feel personally wealth is a problem entering heaven? If not, how do you explain that Jesus clearly states that wealth is a hindrance into entering heaven?

I have asked these questions (and others) over and over again and all I usually get is a shift back to how being a homosexual is an abomination. Conservative Christians (most of them anyway) seem to want to avoid answering those questions that may or do affect them personally. From my viewpoint I see this as being a hypocrite. Now, I am not saying you are personally a hypocrite, Mr. Brown, but for me and others in the GLBT community I have personally talked to, how can we take you at being truly inline with God’s Word (Bible) when those that preach against gays simply disregard other prohibitions that may affect them personally?

In keeping with Dave’s request (and with only a few minutes free at this point), here are my brief responses.

1) There is a massive amount of hypocrisy in our churches, especially here in America, and we heterosexuals can only hang our heads in shame at our poor example. We have done far more to destroy the family with pornography, rampant divorce, and carnal teachings than have gay activists fighting for same-sex marriage. Through the years, I have spoken against and written about (and challenged myself) about these issues far more than I’ve addressed GLBT issues.

2) If there is a valid divorce according to Matt 5 and 19 (or, 1 Cor 7), then remarriage is possible; otherwise, I fear some of our divorced and remarried people are living in adultery.

3) Jesus did not die to make us rich, and the carnal prosperity doctrine is in gross error. On the other hand, both Jesus and the NT authors reaffirmed the OT teaching that God financially blesses His people who are generous and who follow His principles, so in that sense, there is truth to the prosperity message, and there were godly rich people in the NT as well. It is dangerous to put our trust in riches, and that’s what Jesus was talking about, since riches often get our hearts, but God can certainly bless us with riches if our priorities are right and we help those in need.

Just for the record, my last message preached on international Christian TV (last year) was called “It’s time to limp, not strut,” and I spoke of the horrific plague of sexual sin and compromise in our midst, without focusing on gay activism at all. Heterosexual Christians owe the GLBT community (and the world) an apology for our hypocrisy.

That being said, there are many fine people of integrity in the Church today, including leaders, but it’s been a very mixed bag in recent years, and that is shameful to me. Those who read my Revolution book will see that these issues were far more in my mind (when I wrote it) then were GLBT issues.

While I understand your displeasure with Brown’s reply, I honestly can’t see much value in such an uber-hypothetical. In any case, his answer was hardly unanticipated from my view. If he thinks it’s all sin and outside God’s design, of course he would change it if he could. Maybe I am missing something on this.

I guess being a Catholic in an Episcopal Church the “Episcopalianism” is starting to help me understand how people of differences can still come together and worship, and that changing someone to conform to my beliefs or for them to try and force me to conform to theirs is a belittling game that the Church has played almost since it began. And while we play “Hang the Heretic” we lose out on doing what Christ truly called us to do, and one of the strongest messages to scream out from the pages of the Gospels is “Love your neighbor as they are and for who they are.”

I see Michael and the like as always waning to force people to change and conform to their way of doing things NOT for God’s sake or for the other person’s sake BUT FOR THEIRS. And as a Christian I have a BIG problem with that because, while I may disagree with someone on some doctrinal issue, it is not within my right to deny them their right to worship God as they see fit. It is not my right to deny them the sacraments or a pew to sit or to deny them their right to participate in the ministries of the Church. And I certainly have no business trying to make a guess as to who is going to heaven and who is not. Nor does anyone else for that matter save God.

When someone forces others to change for THEIR convenience so that their needs are met, they can cover it up with whatever rhetoric they want, the bottom line is, it is against Christ’s message. And while Michael is saying that he loves gay people, that may be fine and dandy, but many claim to love a group of people they do not agree with or like. But many talk the talk but don’t walk the walk, and what they really mean to say is they love them from a distance, as long as “the other’s” children don’t go to their children’s schools, as long as they don’t live in their neighborhoods, as long as they don’t attend their churches, as long as they don’t clamour for equality.

One more note (having just re-read your post): Yes, if I could change our divorce laws and eliminate no-fault divorce, I would. The deleterious effects of no-fault divorce on families and children have been well documented.

As some here already know I bring up divorce and remarriage quite a bit. How do feel about those that have divorced and remarried

Ok, I wrote this before you-Dr. Brown, responded, but let’s pretend anyway (a’hem)…

You sit back down Dr. Brown, I’ll field this one.

Ken R, basically, as long as you’re a heterosexual, there’s always a way around Scripture. Simply because of the fact that one is in line with “God’s creative intent.”

That creative intent happens to include the adultery of remarriage, cheating adultery, heterosexual Polygamy, heterosexual Incest, and even bestiality assuming the animal is of the opposite gender, and including necrophilia, assuming the corpse is of the opposite gender. THEN comes the sin of homosexuality. As long as the sin is motivated by the desire to be with the OPPOSITE gender, then it is still in line with God’s creative intent, and can thus be forgiven.

In other words, it’s an “event,” not an actual “state” like homosexuality.

Same-gender attraction can never be “forgiven,” because the “state” of homosexuality is a “state” of rebelling against God.

So we really do literally represent evil. Simply because our nature goes against nature, except for the fact that our love is just as real as theirs, which essentially means that we’re right and they’re wrong. Frankly.

I think that’s why they’re so resistant to it, to wrap your brain around that, and accept it, literally shifts the entire paradigm of God.

So that’s why they don’t feel hypocritical when they isolate the “sin” of homosexuality above and beyond all others.

In fact, to say otherwise is to lie. Exodus does this, most of them do.

Homosexuality is the one unforgivable sin, because by definition, whether understood to be conscious or not, it is understood as the very resistance to the nature of God itself – who is love.

Therefore, homosexuality is the resistance to the nature of love itself. Thus, same-gender attraction is just one more “perversion” amongst murder, death, war, pestilence, plagues, starvation, poverty, rainy days and Mondays c’mon people, help me out here etc., that happens to be the result of man’s fallen nature/state…

Dr. Brown, if you’d be so obliged, it’s important to myself, and perhaps others here, that you might confirm the extent to which you personally feel this assessment is accurate.

no pressure

P.S. I do realize there’s some implied rhetoric involved, but if you could over look that, I’ll make sure to notice.

If I can synopsize for those who didn’t follow the numbers. Please feel free to correct any misunderstanding:

Legality of Private Sexual Behavior

You favor the overturn of Lawrence v. Texas thus recriminalizing gay persons (and especially gay couples) in a dozen states. You don’t really want to throw those people in jail, you just want for the law to officially disapprove of them and to have a basis for unequal treatment. You don’t necessarily favor extending that criminalization nation wide.

As long as gay people were closeted, you would let them have private consensual sex. They could hold jobs, even in the public sector. Nor would sexual orientation necessarily be a factor in immigration decisions.

Public Advocacy

You do not support the dissolution of gay advocacy groups. Nor would you necessarily ban all gay groups from public space.

However you would insist that they not violate “public lewdness”, even if they were in segregated and separated areas that were not easily accessible to the casual citizen. You also are not at all clear as to whether you wish to ban “public lewdness” as it is currently defined or whether it would be redefined to be consistent with “the morality of the Bible”.

Same-Sex Couples

You would immediately dissolve any marriage, civil union, domestic partnership or any other recognition of same-sex couples. You would incorporate a nationwide ban so that any state that wished to recognize such relationships would not have that option.

Education

You would not favor firing closeted gay teachers. However, if they were to be open about their orientation then they could be fired.

You would require that any mention of homosexuality in public schools be “based on the morality of the Bible” including teaching that homosexuality is unhealthy, unnatural, and sinful. You would ban all positive information, including any reference to gay families or gay marriages.

Further, you would ban all groups that would provide a positive image including Gay-Straight Alliances and any “overtly” gay example that a teacher may provide. You would, however, have students be told in public school that through religious programs they can overcome their sexuality.

Religion

You would have those churches that currently are welcoming and affirming change their positions on homosexuality to one of condemnation of homosexuality (though not of same-sex attracted persons that don’t identify as gay).

Further, if any clergy member of such a church were to take action contrary to such condemnation – officiating at a gay union, for example – they should have their credentials pulled.

ENDA

This one confuses me because your answers are very inconsistent with your behavior.

You support the right of a gay person not to be fired solely because of his orientation. You caveat that with protecting religious institutions (such as Christian bookstores). You also make exception for transgender issues.

You also support the right of gay persons not to be denied housing based solely on sexual orientation.

Now this would seem to suggest that you supported the most recent ENDA legislation that was before Congress. It did exactly this – and had the same exceptions that you made. However, you recommended that AFTAH (Peter LaBarbera) is a source for the proper position on ENDA and LaBarbera was an activist in strong opposition.

I am wondering if you are saying one thing to me and perhaps another to those who share your culture war positions. Or maybe you are unaware of what you are recommending.

Hate Crimes

This category consists of a number of different issues from enhanced sentencing to simply tracking violent crimes based on anti-gay animus.

Not all states participate, but currently some states track hate crimes and report them federally. Some anti-gay activists oppose the tracking of anti-gay violent crimes on the basis that it stigmatizes Christians.

You did not provide an answer on this issue.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

You do not support allowing gay soldiers to serve openly in the military, but you would not reinstitute a total ban. As long as people were closeted, they could serve secretly in the military.

Conclusion

Thank you, Michael. I think that this does help us better understand the goals of your revolution.

But sadly enough, I did not find any areas in which you and I agree on how you should be allowed to impact my life. We do agree on some specific areas (gay advocacy groups should not be banned), but overall I find your positions to be authoritarian, arrogant, and hostile.

The natural theory is humorous at best. If humanity didn’t go against nature, we’d all be grunting right now in a cave. Humanity went “against nature” the minute we discovered fire.

What Michael Brown seems to be proposing is what Hitler and his gang proposed to do with the Jews (and other unwanteds) before they began killing them outright. First, separate them, take away their rights, starve them, take away their dignity, degrade them, force them to act the way they were perceived to be. Once that is accomplished and the majority of the society is in agreement, then executing them was not so troublesome.

Michael wrote, “Is it possible that you could be the same person you are — with your unique gifts and talents and abilities and personality — and be heterosexual?”

No, being gay has made me examine everything in my life. I had to question my religion, politics, society, social norms, etc. While ultimately I do not know how I would be as a hetereosexual, the question is, “Why would I have any incentive to examine or change my life?). There are few gay people who do not question why they are different from an early age.

I took a psychology class in college, and the textbook stated that 80% of all children adopt the parent’s values and social situation by age 18. I do not know where they got that stat, but I think that most people grow up to be pretty similiar to their parents. That is true of every friend I had growing up–they have the same religion, similiar types of jobs, similiar lifestyles, similiar social status, same addictions, same politics, etc.

If I had followed in my parents’ footsteps, I would have probably been racist, selfish, materialistic, etc. My dad came from tobacco fields in Kentucky. My family back there was extremely racist–even spanking my sister when she spoke to an African-American man. My parents love gadgets and material goods to show off to friends, even when they do not use them. I could go on and on. I love my family, but when I realized I was gay, I essentially had to “divorce” them. I knew I was different when I was in elementary school. Even my kindergarten teacher told my parents I was gay. By age 7, I had to evaluate my difference and life. I did not accept my homosexuality until 21, but I realized I was not like my parents–and everything goes back to being gay. I developed ways of coping in a situation, and it made me a better person. A much better person. In fact, my being gay actually forced my family to confront their prejudices, and they are much better for it in the end. If I was straight, there would be no reason to examine my life. All I have to do is look on both sides of my family–my cousins all are screwed up and basically continue the family problems. I am the only person on both sides (out of 15 kids) who ever did anything, succeeded, and kept out of trouble. There are those who are in prison, wife-beaters, alcoholics, etc. I was the only person to get high school and college (post-graduate) degrees. I escaped all those problems–why? Again, I think everything goes back to being gay–I had to examine my life in a way I never would otherwise.

Brown repeatedly asks (here and on the Throckmorton thread) if gay marriage is allowed, why not paedophilia and incest? Presumably, however, he would never make either legal, even between consenting persons. Yet he would allow homosexuals to have sex in private. Why the disparity? I think because in reality, he recognizes exactly the same distinction that proponents of gay marriage want to make: Paedophilia and incest are harmful and abusive; homosexuality is not. Whether he likes it or not, his own position legitimizes homosexuality – to an extent.

If Dr Brown were to state why homosexuals should be free to have sexual relationships, where paedophiles and blood-relatives should not, I doubt his reasoning would differ all that much from those who say gays and lesbians should be able to marry.

Ok, I’ve just read through this entire thread and two things (besides the length) jumped out at me: No one’s changed anyone else’s mind/heart and there are VERY few areas of agreement.

What was the point of these exchanges other than to see that Michael Brown doesn’t want to see anything good happen to gay/lesbian people and supports just about everything that makes our lives more difficult?

What was the point of these exchanges other than to see that Michael Brown doesn’t want to see anything good happen to gay/lesbian people and supports just about everything that makes our lives more difficult?

I find it informative to see how people justify themselves as they act against the values they espouse.

I know your argument carries weight to you, but I really do not see any merit to it for several reasons.

Civil law is based on principles of morality and justice, even if it is secular, not religious law. We have laws against stealing, rape, murder; laws regarding property; laws regarding business practices. To the extent we can follow biblical principles in making those laws, all the better. So, as a citizen of this country, I could not in good conscience support a law that sanctioned something that I understood to be contrary to God’s order and sinful. On another post, the question of no-fault divorce came up. If attempts to introduce that were taking place today, I would oppose that as well. And this is not “the Protestant Church” trying to dictate something; it is individual Christians voting and acting according to their moral convictions, just like any other citizens. And in a democracy, the will of the majority of the people will prevail. Also, as Christians, we are responsible to be salt and light (Matt 5:13-16), and so by doing what is right and voting for what is right, we are simply living with consistency rather than hypocrisy.

I wonder, however, what you would say to a polygamist who raised your very arguments? After all, throughout human history, marriage has been the union of a male and female rather than the union of two people, and one of the reasons the state recognizes marriages has to do with procreation. So what do you tell the polygamist who, contrary to the same-sex marriage advocate can point to biblical examples of marriages like his and, who contrary to the same-sex marriage advocate has the possibility of procreation. On what basis should civil law restrict polygamy? I’m sure I can go to a polygamist website and find your exact words there as well: “Laws against such things are inherently unfair.”

Again, lest you say, “We’re not talking about polygamy here,” remember that the issue of polygamy was raised long before that of same-sex marriage, and it is being raised again in the courts today. And I repeat: The fundamental elements that constitute marriage in society (and in God’s sight, according to the Scriptures) are a male and a female, not two people. That is to say, it is the two genders which are essential; the number “two” in a marriage follows from that.

I also find it somewhat misleading to ask the question of what Jesus said about specific issues without asking, “What does the rest of the Bible say?” After all, Jesus (Yeshua) was a first-century Jewish rabbi who stated clearly that he did not come to abolish the law and the prophets but to fulfill them (Matt 5:17-20). Therefore, we need to look at the totality of divine revelation on a subject, and in this case, we’re reminded by Paul in Rom 13 that even civil servants are appointed by God to do good, and contrary to your view that I’d have to “strain the rather specious argument that same-sex marriage will somehow destroy society,” I do, in fact, believe that same-sex marriage is ultimately not in the best interest of society and will have a deleterious effect. You might follow Eskridge and others here; I agree largely with Kurtz and Gallagher and George and Blankenhorn, and I want our civil laws to do what is best for our society. It is unrelated to what the church does and does not recognize. As for Catholic teaching, I’m not familiar enough with Catholic laws to comment on this, but I’m sure that an American Catholic would agree with me that civil laws should promote what is best for a society.

I appreciate you trying to synopsize my comments, but I think the readers here are sharp enough to look at your initial list of 20 items and compare with my responses; more importantly, my “yes” and “no” answers carry important explanations (as related to #1 and #2 on your list, for example), so for the record, I would prefer that people read my response and come to their own conclusions, also remembering that these are not “canonized” answers in every case (for example, regarding the military issue, to which I have not given a lot of thought to date).

As to ENDA, your answer highlights the bottom line: You see the ramifications of ENDA one way and I see them another way, to the point that my hypothetical about a dentist wanting to fire a male receptionist who insisted on wearing a dress to work would become problematic should ENDA be passed.

Finally, let me say that the detached and selfless humility you exhibit in judging me in your final comments is truly breathtaking (sarcasm intended).

I appreciate you trying to answer on my behalf, thereby saving me much time and effort (yes, I’m smiling, and I imagine you might have been too when you composed hypothetical answers on my behalf), but I’m sorry to say that due to the flood of posts the first night and my full schedule since then, I have only scanned your posts so far, not reading them carefully yet.

Hopefully, I can get to them before largely checking out of this blog in the next few days, and I’ll look for things we didn’t cover in the Throckmorton thread to which I can respond here.

Hitler? So, I guess being called a jihadist by an earlier poster wasn’t enough. Now I’m being compared to Hitler. Frankly, as a Jew and as a student of the Holocaust, I find your statement quite revolting and, more importantly, in direct contradiction to reality on every level.

The fact is, you have the same rights to protection under the law that I have, and I would fight for those rights on your behalf. No one has the right to attack you, kill you, steal from you, rape you, kidnap you – and on and on – and if anyone did, they would be prosecuted by the law. (You don’t need a hate crimes bill to protect you; you are already protected as a human being.) And far from our society (or people like me in particular) trying to separate you and take away your dignity, we are going in the opposite direction. In America, open gays and lesbians serve in Congress, entertain us on TV, lecture at our universities, care for us in our hospitals, and even preach from our pulpits. GLBT advocacy is totally legal, and more and more people understand that the gay or lesbian next door is no more likely to be some sexual predator or deviant monster than the straight neighbor.

What I am “proposing” is simply that we do not fundamentally redefine the essential nature of marriage by changing it from one man and one woman to two human beings. That makes me like Hitler? Really, Alan, do you believe that? As to the fact that, in answer to Timothy’s questions, I stated that I do not favor an openly gay person teaching children in our schools, I also would not favor an openly adulterous person teaching children in our schools, nor would I want an atheist teacher to tell the children, “I am sure there is no God.” Those are my personal preferences and values, which is what I was asked. But does that make me like Hitler?

One last point: Regardless of what the folks posting here believe, if you will listen to me speak in churches (when I do address these issues, which is only occasionally), and if you listen to my public lectures dealing with homosexual issues, I am constantly trying to destroy the exaggerated stereotypes some Christians have of gays and lesbians, trying especially to cultivate compassion and sensitivity in the hearts of pastors and leaders towards the GLBT community.

So, as a citizen of this country, I could not in good conscience support a law that sanctioned something that I understood to be contrary to God’s order and sinful. On another post, the question of no-fault divorce came up. If attempts to introduce that were taking place today, I would oppose that as well. And this is not “the Protestant Church” trying to dictate something; it is individual Christians voting and acting according to their moral convictions, just like any other citizens. And in a democracy, the will of the majority of the people will prevail. Also, as Christians, we are responsible to be salt and light (Matt 5:13-16), and so by doing what is right and voting for what is right, we are simply living with consistency rather than hypocrisy.

I hate to break this to you Mr. Brown that no fault divorce will never go away because the majority (including those in your churches) do not wish to loose their safety net in case they find their spouse in time something other than a loving and caring partner.

Mr. Brown, if the majority proclaimed like Star Parker did in the Values Voter Summit last year claiming they want all sodomites quarantined are you willing to go with the majority if the government had the power to quarantine gays? If you do not believe this, why not? The will of the majority of the people should prevail and be put in force according to your own post above correct? If the will of the majority would like to see gays separated from the rest of society then that should happen shouldn’t it?

Mr. Brown, while I thank you for being honest with your answers to my previous questions I do want to leave you with a few words of advice. I think its time that you use your abilities to clean up the sin within your own churches and institutions. I have met people that have left evangelical/fundamentalist churches and Christianity altogether because of the deep hypocrisy that runs through them. Not consistency with their beliefs mind you. Hypocrisy. They came to this realization that as they shouted “evil sinner” to every individual they saw as “the other” they themselves began a path of self-righteousness and proclaimed because they were Christian that they were above condemnation themselves. Oddly, they were taught because of their “born-again” status that somehow it gave them the right to judge others and treat them as they would not want to be treated. Personally, I find it hard to believe anything any Evangelical (especially a conservative one) tells me. I am not alone in my feelings. I have had others tell me the same thing and they used to be Evangelicals! I have been to ex-Christian websites/forums and you will be amazed at what they pour out in those posts. The pain and the suffering they had to endure while in these churches. All the extra baggage that was placed on them and the lost of family and friends because they constantly preached down to them. And I am not talking about evangelical gays either. These are mostly straight former Christians that have spilled out their feelings to strangers and to those that have gone through what they had gone through. And where is the love of Christ in these churches? Apparently to them there was no love. Only condemnation, suffering, pain, coercion, and the need to be smugly above all other unsaved sinners.

Jesus told us not to judge others because no one is better than the other. I think its time your churches begin to listen to what Jesus really had to say.

And Mr. Brown, I in good conscience cannot live a life that is a lie. I will not live a life that is full of self-deception and misery (being an ex-gay) simply because a few Christians demand that I live according to their will (or interpretation of Scripture) as they disregard God’s other prohibitions for themselves.

What I am “proposing” is simply that we do not fundamentally redefine the essential nature of marriage by changing it from one man and one woman to two human beings.

The essential nature of marriage has been redefined by every culture, every religion, and every time period. Marriage extends out of the necessity of the society, and the society dictates what the nature of marriage is. That is why marriage in one part of the world is totally different from what we expect marriage to be in the United States. What you want to not have tampered with is “traditional American values” which do not necessarily equate to “Biblical values.”

That makes me like Hitler? Really, Alan, do you believe that?

I believe anyone who wishes to oppress a group of people, deny them their rights, limit them and hinder them from being able to receive what the majority of the population receives, wishes for their elimination either by assimilation or extermination has the potential to be likened to Hitler. Especially how you are describing how you wish to purge this nation of homosexuals.

As to the fact that, in answer to Timothy’s questions, I stated that I do not favor an openly gay person teaching children in our schools, I also would not favor an openly adulterous person teaching children in our schools,

As a Catholic, I would not favor an open fundamentalist/born-again/charismatic/evangelical teaching children in our schools, but BECAUSE WE HAVE A LAW THAT SEPARATES CHURCH AND STATE, I would hope that a person like that would be law abiding and not fling the Bible at the kids and tell them that one out three in the classroom is doomed to hell on a regular basis.

And the laws are there to protect this fundamentalist from someone like me who may get a bunch of us Catholics together and try to pass a law that says no openly fundamentalists can teach in schools. OUR LAWS PROTECTS US FROM BEING VICTIMS OF PREJUDICE BECAUSE OF RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION. In other words, I can have my personal opinion, but I live in a country where I have to respect others and not deny them their equal protection under the law.

I’m glad you take offense to being associated with Hitler as I am offended you associate me with an adulterer.

You need to realize something Michael. God did not go on vacation and leave you in charge. You have not been called to be God’s Supreme Court Justice. If you concentrated on doing what the Gospel really tells us as Christians to do, we would not even be having this conversation.

I hope you will have an answer to Christ when he asks you, “Why did you do this? Didn’t you know when you did that to the least of my brethren you were doing that to me?”

One last point: Regardless of what the folks posting here believe, if you will listen to me speak in churches (when I do address these issues, which is only occasionally), and if you listen to my public lectures dealing with homosexual issues, I am constantly trying to destroy the exaggerated stereotypes some Christians have of gays and lesbians, trying especially to cultivate compassion and sensitivity in the hearts of pastors and leaders towards the GLBT community.

If I were to attend one of those lectures or go to hear you speak in a church, all I would rue is having spent money on the gasoline to get me there and having devoted time to it. I really don’t feel you are interested in a dialogue. Your posts seem more like talking to people, not with them while you try to rationalize and justify your prejudices.

I also noticed you got quite defensive when a comparison was made to Hitler.

What I am “proposing” is simply that we do not fundamentally redefine the essential nature of marriage by changing it from one man and one woman to two human beings.

Have you read Marriage: A History by Stephanie Coontz? I suggest you do. She demonstrates that what you call “traditional” marriage is in no way traditional. Furthermore, any anthropologist can tell you that same-sex marriage has existed throughout known history. A fact seldom mentioned by those who try to hide the facts from their followers.

Regarding hate crime legislation – are you in favor of removing religion as a protected class in all hate crime legislation? Why should you as a Christian/Jew (whatever you consider yourself to be) have special rights based on your religion? Why should you have special protections regarding employment and housing based on your lifestyle choice? Why is it that Christian leaders complain about giving homosexuals “special rights” when those leaders already have all those “special” rights, simply based on their lifestyle choice, yet never acknowledge that they already have them. Why such dishonesty?

Why do those Christian leaders oppose giving homosexuals, who are the victims of hate crimes much more often than Christians in this country are, the same rights and protection that the Christian leaders have? How is this consistent with the Golden Rule? Until Christian leaders act to remove religion from hate crimes legislation or acknowledge that, based on the FBI’s data, homosexuals deserve to be included because we ARE often victims of hate, I will simply regard Christian leaders as utter hypocrites who refuse to given others the same rights and privileges they themselves receive. They call the rights “special” – I presume they are special because Christians have them and don’t want anyone else to have them as well.

Virtually every society on the planet has these same laws, whether their populations are primarily Christian or not. You can argue that they all come from God’s original laws written on the heart of man, but this is not the issue, and neither is polygamy – I’m not following you down those little trails to nowhere. Where our laws intersect with those values found in the Bible, they probably intersect with those in most holy scriptures. However, this country is not a Theocracy, and so we don’t create or uphold laws based solely on the Bible. We treat all beliefs equally, including the lack of any.

And in a democracy, the will of the majority of the people will prevail.

A man as bright as you does not realize this is not a democracy? We are a Federal Constitutional Republic, and there are vast differences between that and a democracy. Or do you think Brown v. Board of Education should have been decided by virtue of the majority?

The primary function of the government of this country is not, and I say this as a believer, to ensure that it’s citizens necessarily act in accordance with the laws set forth in the Bible. At at such times when the majority doesn’t understand that, seeking instead to disenfranchise a minority group of citizens via referendum, the court must intervene to make sure all citizens have the rights recognized by the United States Constitution. This is what some call “activist judges” though in reality they are doing their jobs.

So back to my original question, why can’t the Protestant Church do as the Catholic Church does now, simply ignore any civil marriage they don’t feel follows their view of scripture? I did ask a catholic, btw, and if you get married by a Justice of the Peace, you are not married in the eyes of the RCC. Why then do we not require as a matter of law that couples must be married by a priest?

This country is not a church, and it’s citizens are not a congregation. For some, intimate, loving relationships are only possible with members of the same sex. They aren’t asking for several spouses, just the one that you now get.

The argument that societal destruction looms if we allow such marriages is not only specious, it’s absurd; a bunch of Cameronesque nonsense dredged up to support the fact that the only real objection is the interpretation by some of scripture. That is not enough reason to create laws which restrict the rights of others, unless of course, a Theocracy is actually what you are going for.

constantly trying to destroy the exaggerated stereotypes some Christians have of gays and lesbians, trying especially to cultivate compassion and sensitivity in the hearts of pastors and leaders towards the GLBT community.

but then…

do not favor an openly gay person teaching children in our schools, I also would not favor an openly adulterous person teaching children in our schools, nor would I want an atheist teacher to tell the children, “I am sure there is no God.” Those are my personal preferences and values.

and then dragged someone like me into your comments….

I see them another way, to the point that my hypothetical about a dentist wanting to fire a male receptionist who insisted on wearing a dress to work would become problematic should ENDA be passed.

It is enough. In your militancy you can call a washroom a toilet all you want and in the end it is still a washroom when everyone calls it a bathroom.

I really commend your self-righteousness, as much as I appreaciate your double standardness and desperation to win people into your frame of thinking. Sadly, Jesus also said to love your neigbour as you love yourself. I do not think you have the capacity to do so, if not you would not repeat the same dogma again and again. You already voiced out, but still trample over all of us as your justification of doing good in the name of mankind.

So after more than a hundred comments here, may I ask, what is your purpose of being here? Do not answer all of us with another question or skid off the question. Just answer, truthfully to us and to God, why are you here? What do you want? What are expecting?

I also noticed you got quite defensive when a comparison was made to Hitler.

With all due respect Phil, if ever there was a time to get defensive, that would be it, lol.

Seriously, I know the temptation is there sometimes to use Hitler comparisons. We’ve all done it, and frankly there are some correlations between pre-WWII treatment of the Jews and the systematic marginalization of any group. In the case of gays, certainly not to the same degree thank God, but much of the tactics are the same, probably because they work well for a while.

That said, let’s try to avoid them since they almost always cause more trouble than they are worth. And in most cases, as in this one, the recipient of the comparison gets to appear flabbergasted as though they had never experienced the remarks before, which tends to deflect from scrutiny of their argument.

Thanks for summarizing Mr. Brown’s responses to your questions. I had to open two webpages and line them up. I also had to bounce around quite a bit since he didn’t answer them in order. I am not sure why he did it the way that he did. The only way he could have answered the questions was to refer to list. If I were him, I would have copied the list and pasted the list into my response. Mr. Brown chose to do it otherwise, and I appreciate your making it easier to follow his answers. He could easily have done that for himself, but did not.

American Catholic would agree with me that civil laws should promote what is best for a society.

An American Catholic would agree, but, as an American and a Catholic, I would also say that it is my duty as an American to see to it that all citizens are treated fairly and equally even if it means some sacrifice on the part of the society at large, and as a Catholic, I would say the same thing but extend that statement to encompass a global understanding of that same message.

I completely disagree with your opinions, and I clearly do not support your attempts to use the force of law to discriminate against me (including overturning Lawrence v. Texas, which would allow state authorities to throw me in jail, fine me and declare me a sexual offender, if the local authorities so desired).

Despite my very strong opposition to your views, I have no desire to invalidate your marriage, jail you for your views (as long as you don’t go so far as to incite violence), prohibit you from working in the public or private sector, prohibit you from serving your country if you so desired, prohibit you from adopting a child or in any other way you treat you differently than any other Americans.

Michael does not like my synopsis. But he does not argue with it – he only suggests potential nuance differences.

If I may be so bold, what I suspect Michael Brown really dislikes is that his views are put on clear display. That is why he avoids direct answers, you see. Without direct answers, no one can quote him. And he has an image to sell. Or so I believe.

I’ve been patiently responding to everyone I’ve been able to, so I’m a bit baffled by the implication that I’m dodging issues.

As to why I’m here, I think it’s fairly obvious. An article was written about me, I found some minor inaccuracies in it and differed in the overall picture it painted, I added a post with my comments, people began to ask me questions and challenge me, and I have been responding as I’ve had the time. Is this so mysterious?

I have not posted here before and don’t expect to in the future, unless something comes up directly related to me or my work, and if it’s appropriate and I’m welcomed I’ll respond.

Regarding your “debating 101” comment, either I’m not communicating clearly (which could be the case) or you have the unique ability to read something into what I’m saying or doing, but my purpose in my opening comment (that your argument carried weight to you but not to me) was written out of respect for your position. In other words, “I really see no merit to your argument, but I know it has importance to you.” That’s why I stated it. So, my point was, “You have obviously thought about these issues for years; they are important to you; you’re a well-read, intelligent man; you feel this argument is strong. I really don’t see it that way at all.”

As to ENDA, your answer highlights the bottom line: You see the ramifications of ENDA one way and I see them another way, to the point that my hypothetical about a dentist wanting to fire a male receptionist who insisted on wearing a dress to work would become problematic should ENDA be passed.

No, Michael, laws are not how one “sees” them. Laws are how they are written. The ENDA proposed did not prevent a dentist from requiring gender specific work attire. Transgendered protections were severed from the bill.

You know this.

Now you are just being less than strictly honest. In, I suspect, a feeble effort to have it both ways: to oppose work protections while pretending here at this site that you support them.

If I may be so bold, what I suspect Michael Brown really dislikes is that his view are put on clear display. I understand, I would be ashamed of them too.

From someone like you Timothy, you still have the almighty patience to dissect every paragraph he pump in. For me, I find his paragraphs retrospect meaningless as he parades his righteousness. He keeps on putting his ‘but’s all around the place, like:

(He) do fight against the mistreatment of gays and the demonizing of gays when (he) speak to pastors and leaders, But if (he) believe same-sex unions are wrong in God’s sight, (he) will not vote for them and work for them.

It is useless to discuss with him. How to discuss such dogmatic hypocritical views?

Thanks for sharing your views openly and honestly. Be assured that I spend most of my ministry time (and have done for more than three decades now) dealing with sin within the church — and searching my own life. I am in the process of finishing one book that addresses homosexual issues; I have written almost ten addressing problems within the church.

Let me leave you with two thoughts:

First, please take careful notice of how my words have become completely twisted in this very thread. I responded to Paul earlier with these words:

You ask if I could, would I eradicate homosexuality, meaning that all homosexuals would be fully-satisfied heterosexuals who felt complete and whole in that identity, the answer is yes, I certainly would. If I could snap my fingers and it would suddenly happen, and no one would go through feeling “different” as a kid and be subject to ridicule and then be unable to marry and produce offspring, certainly, I would.

If I could not do that, would I want all homosexuals to disappear or go away? God forbid. You are as human as I am and as loved by God as I am, and while we differ over the issue of “rights,” we are neighbors on this planet.

You then claim that I want to “purge society” of homosexuals. Alan, can you see what how things have been twisted?

Second, you and many others quote to me the words of Jesus not to judge, but you and others feel free to sit in perpetual judgment of me, not just saying I’m wrong in holding to the scriptural position that homosexual practice is sin, but in judging my motives, my thoughts, feeling free to impute all kinds of ugly things to me that have nothing to do with who I am and what I say, calling me arrogant, etc. I hold no malice towards any of you for that, but the double standard used is extraordinary.

You claim I have no interest in real dialogue with those here, but do you think that Timothy or David or Dave are wanting to have dialogue with me (in the way you’re requiring it of me)? I would assume they feel as sure about the rightness of their views as I do about mine, and I interact with folks here to clarify positions, answer questions, challenge viewpoints, examine my own vieiwpoints, and learn what I can through the interaction. That’s what I thought the purpose of the thread was. If I’ve been mistaken, I’ll gladly exit.

Michael does not wish to erradicate all homosexuals. He wishes to rid the world of us in another way – he want us to go back into the closet. He’s willing to use legislation to force us to do so – teachers being fired, for example.

Micheal doesn’t necessarily want us dead, he just wants us ashamed and unhappy.

This is, of course, deduced from his positions and the opinions he has stated. If he wishes to clarify so as to avoid being falsely weighed by what he has said and done to date, he’s free to do so.

But I would not count on getting any clear statements from Michael Brown. He specializes in vagueness, hints, and innuendos.

Part of my reply to Alan S. (about cleaning up the sin in the churches) should have been written in reply to you. I accidentally combined your two posts.

I work with many fine people in the churches — people of integrity and compassion and sacrifice — but you are absolutely right in pointing out how messed up the church of America is. I agree with you there, and I continue to invest time and energy in serving the church and helping to bring about repentance and change, but that’s not the only thing I do, and addressing GLBT issues is part of my calling as well, and it’s knocking on my door: in the pre-school where one of my ministry students teaches and is not allowed to refer to kids by their gender; in the Baptist churches of Charlotte that are dividing over GLBT issues; in the HRC, when it calls people that hold to male-female marriage “extremists.”

By God’s grace, I will address these issues as well, but without neglecting the sins in the heterosexual church.

Furthermore, any anthropologist can tell you that same-sex marriage has existed throughout known history. A fact seldom mentioned by those who try to hide the facts from their followers.

Actually, anthropologists will tell you that in most cases, same-sex “marriage” (if we can call it that) was differentiated from male-female marriage; they will also tell you that in many of the cultures (if not most) where such things existed, it involved rites between men and boys. So, what exactly does this prove?

“As to why I’m here, I think it’s fairly obvious. An article was written about me, I found some minor inaccuracies in it and differed in the overall picture it painted, I added a post with my comments, people began to ask me questions and challenge me, and I have been responding as I’ve had the time. Is this so mysterious?”

I am not here to adress your comments to debunk this article, many would have done so without my interference. My concerns is how you could hold such double standards. And how you could say your…

hypothetical about a dentist wanting to fire a male receptionist who insisted on wearing a dress to work would become problematic should ENDA be passed.

Just how would it be problematic? So the dentist should fire the male receptionist attempting transition? So by your logic, my boss should fire me for coming out as a woman? And why would it be a problem if ENDA is passed when gender identity was taken out when it was tabled?

It is your preference and your beliefs alone that a gay should not teach schoolchildren, you and yours alone. But, you went on to say for record that you cultivate compassion and sensitivity in the hearts of pastors in regards to LGTs. So why are you displaying your beliefs here? What are you attempting to accomplish? Double tongues all the way. If you wish to be a good manipulator of words you could at least try to adapt a good memory.

Let’s do a quick review and ask: “Is the pot calling the kettle black?” We started with Timothy’s comments, including:

Dr. Brown is frightening. While I hesitate to suggest a psychopathic mentality, I do believe that he lacks the capacity – or at least the will – to empathize with those he labels as his enemy.

And as best I can tell, he truly sees gay people as his personal enemies. And I think that I am not being extreme to say that I think he hates “the homosexual agenda” and, I suspect, gay people in general. Any harm that comes to a gay person is deserved and justified.

Since then, I was called a jihadist and compared to Hitler. Yuki then chimed in with:

I really commend your self-righteousness, as much as I appreaciate your double standardness and desperation to win people into your frame of thinking. Sadly, Jesus also said to love your neigbour as you love yourself. I do not think you have the capacity to do so, if not you would not repeat the same dogma again and again. You already voiced out, but still trample over all of us as your justification of doing good in the name of mankind.

(Bear in mind that Yuki’s comments follow my clear statement yesterday about the terrible state of sin in the American church, how it is a cause of shame to me, and how we owe to the GLBT community and the world an apology!)

I encourage you that say you are Christians to take your comments before God and ask: Am I guilty of judging Michael Brown in the very way I accuse him of judging me? Perhaps there is some self-righteousness and judgmentalism on the GLBT side of the debate?

You’re absolutely right. I should copied Timothy’s list into my answer. (Perhaps an editor could copy it in now, in brackets indicating it was not there originally.)

That would have make things easier. I kept crossing off the ones I answered on my own page where I had copied them, so when I finished, the list was gone and I didn’t realize that it would be difficult for folks to follow.

To reiterate, however, Timothy’s comments do not speak for me; mine do.

Michael,
If you feel I have judged you in a capacity only meant for God, then I apologize, but I will not apologize for assessing and evaluating your words and rendering a decision. As an Orthodox Catholic Christian I am obligated to defend my faith, to separate truith from falsehoods, and to admonish those who go against the true message of the Gospel, especially to those who claim to be bearers of that same Gospel. If I see a wolf in sheep’s clothing, I am going to yell, “WOLF!” And the wolf can go “bah bah” all its wants to, but a wolf is a wolf. The sheep’s clothing won’t hide it for long.

You may, in all honesty, feel you are doing God’s work. Many people do, but so did my brothers and sisters in Spain during the Inquisition. They thought they were doing God’s work. We can look back now and see that they didn’t, but in the midst of it they were blinded by their stubborn belief that they were in the right and everybody else was in the wrong.

Mr. Brown,
Regan DuCasse here. I am a heterosexual woman, black and Native American and I’ve read through this entire thread and thoroughly examined your comments.
Understand this: Homosexuality isn’t incompatible with characteristics that offer MUCH of merit to all of society.

Christianity has a limited scope of understanding except for ONE fundamental principle. Which is really a principle that is borne through many cultures.
It is this:

To treat another human being the way YOU’D want to be treated, and to know and remember if the LACK of exercising this principle did or does more harm than good.

You live in America, sir. There have been people of color, women and others who have been abused by those assured they knew their Biblical standards and how they could treat another human being. However being treated that way in kind. would never be accepted by YOU.

You chose to be Christian. To what extent and with whom ALSO is a choice.

Being a gay person or even female, will ALWAYS offend the principles of the most influential religions of the world.
And it’s important to note that virtually ONLY women and homosexuals are the most violated and repressed human beings in the world. Which would beg me to question why such narrow definitions of what being male or female are and our roles as such? Narrow to the point of FANTASY.

Homosexuality isn’t incompatible with the characteristics most cherished by humanity, compassion, intellect, spiritual maturity, courage, physical prowess, love and talent and most of all civility.
There are fundamental to a workable and successful society. So why NOT seat gay people at the same table?

Religious books have been created, interpreted, enforced and controlled mostly by MEN such as yourself, and you can live in the world confidently knowing you’ll NEVER be abused by it.

So how TIRESOME it is and so predictable that you’d throw something unrelated to being homosexual, like polygamy as a legitimate argument against a gay COUPLE marrying.
I’ll TELL you why it’s wrong and unfair to do that.

There are NO bans on marrying based on someone’s fundamental HUMAN CONDITION. That’s why.
Current legal exclusions are based on STATUS.
As already married, underaged (which changes in due time) or already closely related and consenting to the union.
Polygamy is many wives to ONE man. Which leaves other men with NO wife, and no option of one. The primacy and function of custody is diluted and primary wife DOES NOT CONSENT to the others by HER will.

Don’t try and play that chord again. It has no merit.
Polygamist societies in AMERICA, are generated by heterosexual males for that other religous saw, that procreation is the highest order of godliness.
And even then, the abuse and other issues problematic to consent and primacy are in evidence. It’s STILL a belief system and not the human condition.
Conjecture isn’t facts. Neither is belief, neither is

This has nothing to do with BEING HOMOSEXUAL and committed and having the potential to do much of merit in society.
Now, having said that. The other issue is that of TRUST. The Bible has some very simple statements on homosexuality.
The rest, that gay people are pedophiles, are disease carriers, are dysfunctional and aren’t fit to BE homosexual are ALL editorializing and baseless in context to heterosexual lives.
And most of all, no one has tried to think that perhaps homosexuality IS complimentary to heterosexuality. Gay people have more than cooperated and succeeded where allowed or not.
This should be enough for ANY Christian to understand THEIR role in remembering not only how they’d want to be treated but how they ACTUALLY ARE.
Gay people are not trying to convert Christians INTO gay people.
Gay people are not trying to SUBVERT what Christian people believe shy of not being abused by that belief.
And Mr. Brown, you cannot justify this treatment in civil law based on what you BELIEVE or THINK will happen.
And if you do, than your Christian principles ARE only going as far as constraining gay people in ways the public at large wouldn’t accept from you and you know it.

You should know better. You must have insulated yourself thoroughly from what OTHER people have had to go through to be so confident that gay people should be treated this way.

I stand by my own belief in the priciple of being measured AFTER I’ve been treated equally and as having the same value as another human being to guide my course, and NOT BEFORE.

You want to be trusted, well WHY? You represent a religious order that’s hurt many people and yet the same cannot be said of homosexuals.
You want to enter into a forum of people who wouldn’t want to BE for all the money in the world.
The courage of love, of faith requires the commitment to stand in another’s shoes and at least TRY and experience what THEY know. Even if by listening and believing they know more than YOU of who they are and whence they came.

To be a Christian is to be confident that you know what a gay person is and what they are outright.
So perhaps you’d like to think that you have the upper hand and have no fear of being wrong.

You weren’t born a female, or gay…or even black. I’m unafraid of God in my firm belief in the love he has for us by GIFTING us with gay brothers and sisters. I am unafraid to listen and know I know NOTHING about being gay, but want to and be here and care anyway.
I am UNAFRAID of seeing and knowing gay people as who they REALLY are and who I REALLY am.

I have no purpose to change gay people, there is NO NEED of it.
I would be in defiance of much that is Christian by being a big mouthed black woman who wears pants.
So?

Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t believe in receiving or donating blood or organs in medical emergencies.
Indeed this is taboo in so many cultures.
And there are risks involved. But the benefits outweigh the risks, and no JW can tell you or me we cant have the choice to receive or give organs and blood.

Homosexuality isn’t even risking your fundamental rights as a Christian. To BE one, live like one…act like one.
And it won’t kill you if everyone isn’t Christian or heterosexual. You know it won’t, so don’t try and behave as if it’ll kill your or kill a gay person if they aren’t the same kind of Christian YOU are.

We are ALL unique in nature. No two alike. No one the same color. We are as varied as humans and flowers in a garden.
So it’s IMPOSSIBLE to think that nature only meant ONE sexual orientation. That doesn’t make sense just living in the world.
And considering the abuses by Christians on the UNWILLING to be Christian, YOU have to build trust.
You have to show that you have faith enough that there is a place at the table equal to YOURS. If you don’t see one right away, MAKE ONE.

Remember that. The shoes are by the door. Make use of your faith and remember to treat someone the way YOU want to be treated.
Let your ACTIONS speak for themselves, not your belief.

So often sir, I can see where I have more faith in love and our Creator than you’ve mustered so far. And I didn’t need to go to church for that.
I know, because of how I have been loved BACK by gay folks.

Actually, anthropologists will tell you that in most cases, same-sex “marriage” (if we can call it that) was differentiated from male-female marriage; they will also tell you that in many of the cultures (if not most) where such things existed, it involved rites between men and boys. So, what exactly does this prove?

No, many cultures had the exact same rituals and word for same-sex marriage as they did for opposite-sex marriage. They saw no difference. E.E. Evans-Pritchard, as an example, mentions this in his discussion of Azande same-sex marriage. I think it was K.J. Dover’s well known book on Greek Homosexuality that also mentions the ceremonies for the same-sex marriages were the same as the ones for opposite-sex marriages.

Also, the men-boys thing you mention is misleading. It’s true that in ancient Greece it was commonly a middle-aged man with a boy in his teens. But the typical first marriage in ancient Greece was between a man in his 20s or 30s and a 12-16 year old girl.

The older/younger opposite-sex marriage is also seen in ancient Israel:

A few anecdotal incidents, and a wealth of later documentation, suggest that women married young, while still in their teens, sometimes early teens, in fact; men waited well into their twenties or even early thirties before marrying.

So it seems to me that your argument is a red herring. Are you willing to condemn the heterosexual marriages in biblical Israel because they were between a very young girl and an older man? Or do you think we should do marriage as they did? If neither, then your reference to the older/younger aspect of same-sex marriages is totally irrelevant.

Many cultures also had female-female marriages. When I took a cultural anthropology class the textbook said 3% of marriages in one tribe in Kenya were between 2 women.

It appears that you are using a selective use of evidence. From the anthropology courses I took I learned that the same-sex marriages mimicked the opposite-sex marriages and were regarded as equal. The selective use of evidence is another reason I have no respect for Christian leaders. You deny people inclusion into hate-crime laws even though you are protected based solely on your lifestyle choice, even though they are more often victims of hate-crimes than your group, and you don’t honestly represent what scholars are saying. When you start being honest about the facts I will start listening to what you have to say.

If I may be so bold, what I suspect Michael Brown really dislikes is that his view are put on clear display. I understand, I would be ashamed of them too.

Sorry, Timothy: You’re not bold here, you’re wrong. If I didn’t want my views out in the open, I wouldn’t be posting here, and I wouldn’t have responded to your questions. The liberty with which you feel to judge my heart or motivations is truly astounding. And despite my differences with you and my belief that your are sinning in God’s sight by having sex with a man, I have not told you a single time you should be ashamed of yourself, yet you are free to tell me I should be ashamed of my views.

The reason I didn’t like your synopsis was because you put your own spin on it. For example, re: Lawrence vs. Texas, I said the only reason I would want it overturned is because it has been so politicized (you know well enough how it’s been used on your side of the marriage debate, etc.); otherwise, my own view was expressed in my response to your second statement regarding the criminality of same-sex behavior. I believe it is wrong, just as fornication and adultery are wrong, but they are not punishable by the law if between consenting adults.

In any case, for the record: I am not in the least bit ashamed for holding to moral views based on the Scriptures, as best as I can God’s Word. I hold to these views with a sense of honor, not shame.

Re: ENDA, you know full well that the transgender clause was taken out to the dissatisfaction of many in your camp, and the example I gave was raised before the transgender issue was removed.

That being said, you’re absolutely right in terms of me using a better example, but you’re savvy enough to know that there are a score of other examples I could have used — even citing some in my response to your list.

But I would not count on getting any clear statements from Michael Brown. He specializes in vagueness, hints, and innuendos.

Read my comments on the Throckmorton blog (and your lack of responses to my points), and read my comments here: I have made dozens of specific statements and written detailed responses to specific questions you raise.

I really hope and pray that some folks reading this thread will step back and evaluate the truthfulness (or lack thereof) of your statements. Even those who think I’m a homophobic bigot should be able to see that what you write is patently false.

Theonomy posits that the Biblical Law is applicable to civil law, and theonomists propose Biblical law as the standard by which the laws of nations may be measured, and to which they ought to be conformed.

The point is, we do not look to the Bible before enacting or repealing a law. Our form of government is not in the Bible, nor is our standard of equality, ban against cruel and unusual punishment, trial by jury, our major freedoms, our process of allowing amendments, etc, etc. Our laws are based on many traditions, but of course that’s one of those little trails to nowhere I’m not going down with you.

Your rights stop where mine begin. You are free to follow your conscience, by which I mean you do not have to fall in love with another man, you do not have to marry another man, you are free to worship in a church which thinks it would be a sin to do so, and you can give your own opinion that it is a sin openly as you are doing here. But you can’t impose your convictions on me.

Now if you don’t mind, could you please seriously address my comments above as you have not yet done so.

I guess everything I write is analyzed and read a certain way. I should have been used to it by now.

As for trying to analyze why Phil holds his opinion, that’s actually one of the things I’ve been doing in this thread, and whether or not you believe me, I’m constantly trying to see why you and others see things the way you do. I may differ with you, but I continue to get more insight into your worldview, and I don’t see how that can hurt.

I’m about to drop out of this thread (after responding to Dave Rattigan) due to time constraints among other things, but as soon as I have some time, I’ll post some sources that back the statements about marriage I’ve made (and would differ from the statements you’ve made).

I so appreciate your citation of sources, though, and I’ll check them out ASAP.

Regan, earlier in the thread I asked Mr. Brown to avoid exceptionally long comments because they are difficult to read, and cover too much ground to respond to effectively. I appreciate your input as always, but I can’t hold him to one standard, and you to another. Please try to keep your comments somewhat shorter than the original post as much as possible.

As ugly and prejudiced as I find Michael’s views, I’m not sure what to make of charges that he’s dishonest or elliptical in saying what he means. Both here and on Warren’s blog I’ve found him pretty straightforward, overall.

You claim I have no interest in real dialogue with those here, but do you think that Timothy or David or Dave are wanting to have dialogue with me (in the way you’re requiring it of me)? I would assume they feel as sure about the rightness of their views as I do about mine, and I interact with folks here to clarify positions, answer questions, challenge viewpoints, examine my own vieiwpoints, and learn what I can through the interaction. That’s what I thought the purpose of the thread was. If I’ve been mistaken, I’ll gladly exit.

Michael

OK. I’m probably going to (metaphocally) hate myself in the morning, but my point is this: Many evangelicals feel that gays and lesbians are inherently evil people and sinners and a threat to Christians. They feel that due to this, our quest for civil (not sectarian) equality is illegitimate. They ridicule and deride our desire to full equality under civil law. They denigrate our families and our community and our cultural institutions as being evil and not on the same level as their religious convictions, thereby being not as deserving as that same legitimacy that you demand.

And now, you, Dr. Brown, come along and question why we, as a people (and yes, we are people), would dare to be hostile toward you!

I should also point out that when you denigrate us, when you condescend and ask your fellow evangelicals to be sympathetic towards us (because you think there’s something wrong with us), when you suggest that we could be “cured” by following your Jesus, when you go before civil legislative bodies or voters and try to make a case for continued denigration and denial of basic civil equalities, you are committing an attack against me and my family, and yes, after 23 years, we are a family. And yet, you claim these are your rights to religious freedom and not challengeable.

Are you incapable of the empathy required to “get this?” It sure looks like that to me.

I won’t be attending any church that espouses or promotes these views, nor will I be seeking your Jesus, if this is representative of what Christianity is about. If you, or any of your fellow adherents to this philosopy don’t “get this,” maybe you need to take a basic course in human psychology.

In the meantime, your attempt at evangelism rings very hollow.

I know this post is an excercise in futility, but I thought I would point this out.

The reason I didn’t like your synopsis was because you put your own spin on it. For example, re: Lawrence vs. Texas, I said the only reason I would want it overturned is because it has been so politicized (you know well enough how it’s been used on your side of the marriage debate, etc.); otherwise, my own view was expressed in my response to your second statement regarding the criminality of same-sex behavior

Mr. Brown,

Lawrence v. Texas was a case about a criminal law that was used to throw 2 people in jail for private consensual same sex behavior. If you advocate overturning Lawrence v. Texas, you are advocating recriminalizing same sex behavior. You are more than intelligent enough to know that. You can’t have it both ways. This would fall under the category of lying, which you said upthread that you don’t do.

I do think, however, that your readers should know that among the recent things I did in Charlotte was invite gay and gay-affirming clergy to my home church to have a public dialogue with me on the issue of “Can you be gay and Christian?”

Might I request to be invited to your next dialog? I am quite curious about lowering the barriers of the church towards the LGBT persons. If you wish, I can dialog, or simply be an observer. Please also let me know the rules of confidentiality – that is, whether I can share your thoughts especially with other Christian transgenders.

If you wonder at Dr. Brown’s theocratic positions and his desire to dictate harshly the conditions of your life, you have to consider his perspective.

Dr. Brown believes that God will establish a kingdom on earth and that he will rule and reign over those who are not Christians (which by his definition includes us).

Most of us would not really delight at dictating to others. We pretty much want to be left alone and let others live according to the dictates of their conscience.

But Dr. Brown gloats in his assurance that God is going to put him over us:

the Scriptures already tell me what the final outcome will be, and so even if several generations went in what I considered to be a wrong direction, I would still be confident that God’s kingdom will ultimately be established on this planet and at that time, perfect justice and righteousness will prevail. I can wait too.

So appeals to fairness or equality or an even playing field will not work with Dr. Brown. The American principles of equality under law or non-discrimination are merely earthly notions that will be tossed aside when God establishes his kindom.

Now Dr. Brown will chide me for “speaking for him”. But he won’t argue with what I’ve said.

Just as he can’t argue that he isn’t in favor of overturning Lawrence v. Texas, he’ll do what he did there and want to talk around his beliefs. He’ll want to explain and justify and try and get you to forget exactly what it is that he strives for.

Dr. Brown knows that if most folks knew his goals, his culture war would have as few followers as the Phelps’.

But when it all is said and done, what Dr. Brown believes is what he believes and his justifications and suppositions and inaccurate anecdotes can’t hide it.

Michael wrote, “I would assume that you know that the American legal system, at its root, was based on Judeo-Christian legal principles.”

This is an idea that largely took root in the 70s. I also find the idea that “Judeo” is added in to be funny. While the term has been around for only 100 years, the term Judeo-Christian was something largely popularized in the 70s by Pat Robertson. Most of the Ten Commandments come from Egyptian backgrounds. Our legal system is more based on Greek history and law than Christian law. Most of the founders of the country were deists, not Christian. Many Renaissance principles had moved into the Enlightenment period.

This revisionist idea of “Christian” law has largely been popularized since the 60s when Roe Vs. Wade and Brown Vs. School Board were major issues. Christian groups mobilized and started to become extremely political. For more info, check out this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_Church_and_state

Hucakabee recently said the Constitution was not in line with God’s Word. Maybe there is a reason. The Constitution is an extremely neutral, non-religious document. If it was intended to be a religious law body, don’t you think religious concepts would be part of it (The Establishment Clause endorses no religion).

David Roberts,
Thank you for monitoring this blog segment. I personally think you do a very fair job in trying to keep everyone on topic as well as making sure we did not overkill on words in our entries.

While we may come from different communities under the umbrella of faith, and at times maybe disagree on doctrine, word usage, and our approach to expressing our faith, I am grateful for someone like you for allowing something like this blog to happen. So, again, thank you, gracias, multumesc, merci, etc. etc.

Timothy (and Michael): The scripture is what I try to reason from. Here is an important one to me:

Do not rebuke a mocker or he will hate you;
rebuke a wise man and he will love you.

Instruct a wise man and he will be wiser still;
teach a righteous man and he will add to his learning. [Proverbs 9:8,9]

I am not requesting to attend in order to ‘rebuke a fool’. I am even agreeing to be a silent observer. One of my great joys is in seeing Christians attempt reconciliation — even among clergy and even if only in a single city (as I recall). Any attempt at dialog (or even observing an attempt) is something that I can learn from, that helps expand my skills at negotiation/facilitation.

Recently, our Lord allowed me to facilitate combining 4 tracks of work for the country of India with American and Indian input… it was a wonderful exercise that added to my ‘instruction’ and to my ‘learning’.

Michael appears to be of the Charismatic tradition. I imagine that he will take my request seriously, and ask our Lord.

Thanks so much for writing. I’m having a dialogue with Harry Knox, Director of Faith and Religion for the Human Rights Campaign on Feb. 14 in Charlotte. The topic will be: A Christian Response to Homosexuality. We have limited tickets available for the event, but if you’d like to come, let me know and I’ll get you one.

To be sure, I have clear views about what the Scriptures teach about GLBT issues, as those on this blog know well, but one reason that I try to have dialogue (public and private) is that in the process, we can break down negative stereotypes and help others to stop demonizing each respective side.

Of course, in the midst of this blog, the interaction has been fast and furious, but I really do my best to hear what others are saying in more quiet, reflective moments in order to get into their shoes as much as possible. The fact is, we’re all here together, like it or not, and we have to learn to live with each other and respect each others as human beings created by God, even if we stand on opposite sides of social and moral and spiritual issues.

I honestly don’t see how it can hurt for people on both sides of the issue to sit down and talk publicly or privately. Even if we still disagree, perhaps we can be friends or, at the least, understand one another better.

So, let me know if you’re in the Charlotte area and would like to attend.

Michael, there is nothing wrong with dialog as long as its an honest exchange. You must understand that in our experience with conservative fundamentalists like yourself is that the people on your side are rarely interested in anything except conversion to your interpretation of scripture.

We are tried of being proselytized and disrespected. Many of us grew up in your religion and have grown out of it thanks to the grace of God. Subjecting ourselves to more propaganda and evangelism is a waste both our times.

I’m trying to phase out of the blog here, but here’s the first of two answers I owe you.

You raise a good question here:

Brown repeatedly asks (here and on the Throckmorton thread) if gay marriage is allowed, why not paedophilia and incest? Presumably, however, he would never make either legal, even between consenting persons. Yet he would allow homosexuals to have sex in private. Why the disparity? I think because in reality, he recognizes exactly the same distinction that proponents of gay marriage want to make: Paedophilia and incest are harmful and abusive; homosexuality is not. Whether he likes it or not, his own position legitimizes homosexuality – to an extent.

Now, to be more specific, on the Throckmorton blog, I primarily raised the question about ephebophilia (adult attraction to adolescents as opposed to attraction to children), asking, for example, why a consenting fifteen year old male shouldn’t be allowed to marry the man he loves. But either way, your question remains the same, and it’s a valid one.

My answer, however, is not just related to the abuse or harm issue that you raise, since in the case of incest, I was not talking about a father taking advantage of his daughter but of the case in Germany with the brother and sister fighting to have their marriage recognized, a case in which their lawyer used arguments that paralleled those use in the same-sex marriage camp. Of course, there is potential harm for the offspring, but if a brother and sister could want to be married, it’s not impossible that soon enough, two brothers will want to marry, in which case there’s no potential offspring to speak of.

But that still doesn’t answer your question, so let me explain my reasoning. Fornication is wrong, but it’s not illegal for two eighteen years old to have sex; polygamy is illegal, but it’s not illegal for a man to live with two women and have sex with them. I see same-sex activity between consenting adults as fitting into these categories: wrong, but not illegal. (Just for the record, I’ll repeat yet again that the reason I told Timothy that I would want Lawrence vs. Texas overturned was simply because of the way it has been used politically. No one was arresting gay men who were having sex in the immediate years before the case, and on that level, it has made no difference. I don’t think that “sodomy” increased because of the ruling.)

Why do I draw the line there and still hold that other sexual activities should be illegal? That primarily has to do with my understanding of how the law operates and how far it can reach, and I believe it is not the place of the government to investigate the private sex lives of its citizens (with certain, clear caveats). We would agree, then, on sex with minors being illegal (for obvious reasons); incest breaks down lots of family boundaries that must be protected by law; other activities – fornication, adultery, homosexual sex, private use of pornography – are wrong (and, in my view, harmful on a certain level as well) but not within the purview of the law. (Some of my colleagues might strongly differ with me on this, but I’m being candid rather than trying to play some chess game with unclear comments.)

Contrary to the way I have been portrayed here, I do not believe in theonomy (which was one of the questions Warren Throckmorton asked me on his blog that started our long thread), nor do I want America to become a theocracy. (Remember: I’m a Jewish Christian, and Jews tend not to fare well under Christian theocracies, so I’m quite leery of a church-ruled nation.)

If Dr Brown were to state why homosexuals should be free to have sexual relationships, where paedophiles and blood-relatives should not, I doubt his reasoning would differ all that much from those who say gays and lesbians should be able to marry.

To the contrary, marriage has many other implications, and I’ll try to touch on that in a response to David Roberts.

Thanks for asking the question, which certainly gave me pause for thought.

I’m definitely listening, and it always deepens my perspective of where others are coming from. But is it OK for me to ask if folks on the other side are listening in the same you want me to listen? Isn’t dialogue two ways?

Do I expect to change the view of, say, Dave or David? Hardly. Do they expect to change mine? Probably not. Can we still learn from each other, challenge each other to think, gain perspective from one another, model intereaction from which others can learn? I hope so.

Would I love to “convert” people to my understanding of Scripture? Of course I would, but I assume that others here would be delighted if they could help me change my views and embrace theirs.

When you get a chance, check out these books by David Barton: America’s Godly Heritage; Separation of Church & State: What the Founders Meant; Original Intent: The Courts, the Constitution & Religion. I think you’ll find them quite enlightening.

Re: the “Judeo” part of Judeo-Christian, that primarily refers to the use of the Old Testament by early American leaders in terms of legal concepts and principles, not to Jewish influence in America three hundred years ago.

I’m sorry to be so blunt, but you really don’t understand me, despite your frequent explanations of what I actually think and feel.

If you wonder at Dr. Brown’s theocratic positions and his desire to dictate harshly the conditions of your life, you have to consider his perspective.

Dr. Brown believes that God will establish a kingdom on earth and that he will rule and reign over those who are not Christians (which by his definition includes us).

Timothy, you’re making this up. I have no theocratic positions, I have not written a syllable in a single book that argues for theocracy, and I’m not looking forward to ruling and reigning over anyone. I am looking forward to Jesus returning and setting up his kingdom in a world that will look like that described in Isa 2:1-4 and Isa 11. I look forward to the day when verses like this are fulfilled: “They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” (Isa 11:9); and “On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. 7 And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. 8 He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken” (Isa 25:6-8). That’s what I’m longing for and looking forward to.

Now Dr. Brown will chide me for “speaking for him”. But he won’t argue with what I’ve said.

Wrong again, Timothy. Totally. I totally reject what you said.

Just as he can’t argue that he isn’t in favor of overturning Lawrence v. Texas, he’ll do what he did there and want to talk around his beliefs. He’ll want to explain and justify and try and get you to forget exactly what it is that he strives for.

To repeat once more: My issue with Lawrence vs. Texas is the way it has been used politically in an expansive way for other GLBT issues; I am not arguing that two men having sex should be arrested and put it in jail. I’m not sure if you choose not to understand me or if you’re incapable of understanding me, but I have been quite clear on this since you asked.

Dr. Brown knows that if most folks knew his goals, his culture war would have as few followers as the Phelps’.

Wrong once more. My “goals” are quite openly stated, and I have answered questions on this blog with candor because I’m not trying to hide anything. My messages and articles are available free and online, and I’m not trying to hide anything, nor is there anything I want to hide. Jesus said that whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, and by God’s grace, I bring everything into the light.

But when it all is said and done, what Dr. Brown believes is what he believes and his justifications and suppositions and inaccurate anecdotes can’t hide it.

Yes, I believe what I believe, just as you believe what you believe, but, to repeat yet again, I’m not trying to hide any of it.

Would I love to “convert” people to my understanding of Scripture? Of course I would, but I assume that others here would be delighted if they could help me change my views and embrace theirs.

Suggesting that you treat us the way you would be treated yourself is not a “change” in your views. It’s what Jesus demands of you. I’m suggesting that your religion is stained by politics.

How do I support this statement? By your very own words. For instance, you say you don’t support gay people being put in jail for our relationships. And yet, you support a law that would do that very thing.

And why? Because you don’t like what MIGHT happen politically if our relationships are not kept illegal. In essence, you are promoting an evil in order to prevent a phantom possibility.

So, given these thoughts, do you think that it’s useful to dialogue?

That depends entirely upon the goal of the dialogue. I began cross divide dialogue 10 years ago and what I discovered is that once the evangelicals realized we were not going to convert — and worse, that their politics might be going against the actual stated principles of their religion — they dropped out, one by one, until few were left.

So, it would depend upon how serious you are about following the actual principles of “do unto others.” However, if this is about your vanity and need to be “right” and to be celebrated as a “culture warrior” out to “win,” so that you can pound your chest in pride at having driven off the homosexual hordes…?

You shouldn’t hate yourself (metaphorically) for your post. I’m personally glad you wrote what you did. Although I really am trying to phase out of this blog, your post got my attention and I felt I owed you a response.

Many evangelicals feel that gays and lesbians are inherently evil people and sinners and a threat to Christians.

I personally don’t feel that way, and I try to communicate that to other evangelicals. I do not believe God intended us to have same-sex relationships, and I believe that the choice to commit homosexual acts is sinful in God’s sight, but I’m sure that there are countless millions of very decent, caring, compassionate gays and lesbians, and the fact that they have a homosexual orientation is not in itself sinful. The “threat” in my view comes on several fronts, which I have articulated elsewhere and need not belabor here again.

And now, you, Dr. Brown, come along and question why we, as a people (and yes, we are people), would dare to be hostile toward you!

Phil, I fully understand why you and others are hostile to me. Of course! In your eyes, I’m your enemy, discriminating against you, imposing my harsh and antiquated religious views on you, depriving you of the right to have your long term relationship recognized by the law (and/or the church), trying to stop you from adopting kids. I’m not the least bit surprised that people here are hostile to me. But I take exception to being called a jihadist, since I explicitly and repeatedly renounce all forms of religious violence, and I take exception to being compared to Hitler, and I would personally stand by your side and defend you if someone tried to attack you because you were gay. But I’m not surprised that people here are hostile to me, and I appreciate the fact that this blog has allowed me to interact and post.

When I ask evangelicals to be “sympathetic” to you, it’s not in a condescending way; it’s to say to them, “You have no idea the pain that has been suffered by those who tried to reconcile their faith with their sexual identity, and many of them found little sympathy in the church. And if we’re going to tell them their lifestyle is wrong, are we doing so in a calloused and uncaring way?” That’s what I was referring to.

Are you incapable of the empathy required to “get this?” It sure looks like that to me.

I have empathy; it’s a source of great pain to me that my biblical and moral and social convictions cause you grief and make you feel that I reject you and scorn your personhood. I have spent hours on my knees talking to the Lord about these things and searching my heart, but I have to be true to my convictions in His sight, and I believe that He has a better way for you. I know that strikes you as condescending and ugly, but I must ultimately give account to God and I have to be true to Him.

Again, thanks for your post. It is reading things like that for several years now that gives me great empathy, and contrary to Timothy’s assertions about my “gloating,” to the contrary, this is all painful and difficult for me.

Re: Lawrence vs. Texas, I’ve made myself clear about this repeatedly, and the issue for me is not what MIGHT happen if your sexual activities were not illegal, it is how the case IS being used in courts today. It’s not about “supporting a law,” since the law was not enforced. It’s about what was done with a legal case, which is what I was asked.

As for my ongoing interest in dialogue, I did not enter this blog with the thought of “converting” anyone. Honestly, the thought never entered my mind, given the setting here and the strong views of those blogging. Now, when I have a public dialogue with Harry Knox, I hope that some people in the audience will reconsider some things, but whether they do or not, I will continue to have public and private dialogues as long as people are williing to talk. I’ve done that with rabbis now for many years, and there’s one ultra-Orthodox rabbi that calls me every Wednesday night and we talk or study texts for an hour or so. We both want to change the other, but we have agreed that even if we don’t succeed, we can at least learn from each other and gain deeper sensitivity towards our respective positions.

To me, that’s worth it. Now, I can’t put in the kinds of hours I did in the Throckmorton blog or here most of the time (nor would I dare take up someone else’s blog with tons of posts unless the subject matter dealt directly with me), but I’m definitely in this for the long haul, whether people change their views or not.

At last I’m getting to the initial question in your article in which you asked:

One might ask whether allowing interracial marriage violates the rights of those whose religious faith is offended by the mixing of races? How would Brown would have responded to Kenneth Hagin, Jr, the charismatic preacher who taught his students this very thing? By Brown’s logic, how could the US allow interracial marriage without violating (the late) Hagin’s rights? And of course, Hagin’s children would be taught respect for interracial marriage in schools, and his tax dollars would support interracial marriage, to a degree – all objections that Brown levels against permitting gay marriage. The absurdity of the arguments becomes clear.

I would have told him that there was no scriptural support for his view, since nowhere does the Bible speak against interracial marriages and, to the contrary, it even speaks of interracial marriages explicitly (see Numbers 12, where Aaron and Miriam are grumbling because Moses married an Ethiopian – meaning black — woman). In contrast, the Bible explicitly sanctions heterosexual marriage only and explicitly forbids homosexual unions (yes, with the caveat I’m always asked to make: as I understand the Scriptures). Plain and simple, from the creation of Adam and Eve as the expression of God’s image to the pages of the New Testament, heterosexual marriage alone is sanctioned, and as an aside, I should note that gay married couple still have to deal with the fact that the Bible is a heterosexual book, calling husbands to love their wives (not spouses), drawing constant male-female marriage analogies, calling children to honor their father and mother, etc.

Your point, of course, has to do primarily with “rights,” so I’ll respond to that part of the question. First, when the government passed laws allowing for interracial marriage, people had to deal with it, plain and simple. There are some laws in this country that I don’t like, and some of them may infringe on my “rights,” but if the law remains law, I have to deal with it. If I can change it through our democratic process, I will, but if I can’t, I have to accept it. In the case of same-sex marriage, I do not believe it is in our society’s best interest and I will therefore work against it. If it is passed, and it infringes on my rights, I will have to deal with it. Second, my primary reason for opposing same-sex marriage is not because it will affect my rights. That only came up in the Throckmorton blog when I was being pressed to answer some questions about how “gay rights” would infringe on my rights, so I tried to give some examples, one of which touched on the issue of marriage. But to repeat: I am not in opposition to same-sex marriage because of how it would infringe on my rights, which would be quite a selfish mentality. It is for larger societal issues that I stand against it (as I’ll try to articulate in my answer to David’s question that he requested I respond to, which I will do ASAP).

As far as the intersection of gay rights with Christian rights, for me that comes down more to potential conflicts over freedom of speech (I can provide examples if you request), or to what our kids should be taught in school (gay marriage, of course, would intersect there on some level), or, to give a very different example, to the MTA in NYC allowing men who say they identify as women to use the ladies’ bathrooms. (Correct me if I’m wrong here, but I do believe this law is intact.)

In sum then, I’m not expecting the government to ban same-sex marriage because it violates my rights; I’m expecting the government to ban it because it is not in the best interest of our society. The fact that same-sex marriage could potentially violate my rights is totally secondary to the legality question.

So, does that answer your question? While I don’t expect you to agree with my position, I hope my reasoning does not strike you as absurd.

And with the expectation that this is one of the last interchanges between us for now, thanks for giving me the chance to respond and interact, and by all means let me know if you decide to pursue the personal holiness questions.

If you understand that Biblical literalists/fundamentalist do consider the gay issue to be their cry for a spiritual war, then this dialogue proposed by Michael Brown is merely one side attempting to have “peace talks” in order to persuade their enemy (the GLBT community) to accept their terms and demands.

Mr. Brown has already stated quite clearly that he will not change his views on keys issues concerning the GLBT community. He has stated quite clearly what he would do if his side wins this war. These negotiations will mainly consist of one side saying “We want X” and the other side saying, “No, you will only get Y.” The dialogue will mainly be about what his side will offer and what we will be forced to accept.

If we agree to the terms, then they will not be as hostile to us (in their eyes). They will try to deal with us in as civil a manner as they deem possible. But make no mistake, they are ready to go to “spiritual war” if we do not agree with their terms.

They are ready to go into our churches and split them in two. They are ready to get political and reverse laws and take away our rights. They are even willing to deny that we even really exist.

Michael, I wrote a rather detailed response about Barton’s books, which I have read a few. The post never showed up, and I don’t have time again to write everything I did before. Let me just say Barton is not a respected historian or scholar. He is not educated in that field and is self-taught. He has in fact on his website stated that he misused quotes for the sake of his agenda. As the founder of Wallbuilders, he has a political agenda (and financial since he sells his own books on the site). He has also been tied to Christian Reconstructionism, the most dangerous form of Christianity in the US. What is most important to me as a college professor is that no one in the field takes Barton seriously–and that is telling. I also put up a bunch of book suggestions, but if you are really interested, any library will have books that are much more authoritative about Separation of Church and State than Barton’s writings.

On one last note–I did one of my theses on textbook language in older texts going back to 1890 even. There was not a single text that did not address the founders as deists and the importance of separation of church and state. To believe that somehow the legal system and society were wrong all along is problematic–evidence shows that separation was a key idea and concern. IT was not until the last 50 years when the revisionist ideas started popping up. Unfortunately, many will not search out the truth–they will listen to misguided pastors talk about how traditional historical perspectives on separation have been wrong all along. Again, I lost everything I wrote, but I don’t think David wants us to keep harping about this anyhow. Just be aware that Barton is not a good source.

The wolf will always go bah bah… After sneaking and realizing there is no food to be found they just go to another group of sheeps to find some excuse to devour….

I am finding the Brown wolf especially amusing, especially when he claims to understand the Scriptures and calling the Holy Book a heterosexual one. Adam and Eve dogmas he presented can be so easily refuted but he just goes “bah bah” again. He seems to totally ignore tha fact that there are lots of people in this world born intersexed, not male or female. Yep, the world is round indeed.

In his logic (his logic alone) the Holy book should be also a violent one, since it calls for the execution of naughty children, non-virgins, Sunday workers… is it not amazing he totally ignores that side of the Holy book? Or would he argue culture and generation changes throughout the centuries for THIS matter alone and NOT others?

I should note that gay married couple still have to deal with the fact that the Bible is a heterosexual book, calling husbands to love their wives (not spouses), drawing constant male-female marriage analogies, calling children to honor their father and mother, etc.

I find this so funny. By his logic (and his logic alone), maybe instead of fighting for the banning of same-sex marriages, he should fight for the ban of divorces! Yes divorces, since he said…

In sum then, I’m not expecting the government to ban same-sex marriage because it violates my rights; I’m expecting the government to ban it because it is not in the best interest of our society. The fact that same-sex marriage could potentially violate my rights is totally secondary to the legality question.

I am sure it would infringe his rights to see ‘better marriages’ if divorces occur (or not), but in any case, in HIS logic again, divorces cannot be in the best interest of our society too? And surely in his ‘understanding of the scripture’, divorces are bad… and no one is allowed to marry a divorcee…. So why is this Brown wolf not trying to devour this group then?

Mr Brown, since you claim to adhere so much to the Holy book for your politicalization, in the face of only 6 verses in the Bible that is interpreted by the religious right to condemn homosexuality, do you sanction the return of slavery then?

Actually, I’ve appreciated Barton’s writings on a popular level, and since I’m away from my library and on the road, I couldn’t pull out other scholarly sources to cite, I referenced his work. Men like Gaustad (The Faith of our Fathers) and others have emphasized the deistic views of some of the early American leaders, but even in those cases, the Bible was a fundamental text book, and I have copies of school books from the 19th century where children learned the alphabet by having a Christian truth for each letter.

In any case, so as not to clog things up here with further posts, how about emailing my ministry website (www.icnministries.org) with references you’d like me to check or with a critique of Barton, and I’ll be sure to look into it, OK?

You write about the slavery issue as if you just discovered a brilliant new argument. If you’d like to research the issue and learn the hermeneutical and cultural differences between the Bible’s teaching on slavery, the Bible’s teaching on the role of women, and the Bible’s teaching on homosexuality, I would encourage you to read Prof. William Webb’s important book, Slaves, Women & Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis.

It is with good reason that Christian leaders like William Wilberforce and Christian authors like Harriet Beecher Stowe led the abolitionist movement.

From Hitler to a wolf. At least you’re getting a bit more creative in your analogy.

Feel free to tell the world why I’ve been posting here, and to provide more fuel for Yukie’s fire.

I’ll let my posts speak for themselves, and my intent in posting here has been exactly what I said it was. But then again, why should I be believed, seeing that I’m an arrogant, hostile, self-righteous, hypocritical, jihadist, Hitler-like wolf-warrior with pyscopathic tendencies? Not only so, but I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t. If I keep posting here, I get lambasted for it; if I drop out, it’s because I failed to convert others so I have to look for others upon whom I can prey.

When you have some time, print out this thread and in a quiet moment, do some reflecting.

First, I just wanted to acknowledge your responses to my specific questions, Michael. Thanks. Obviously we’re not going to agree, however, and the back-and-forth has to end at some time.

Second, a lot of folk are getting quite exasperated now, including Michael. I don’t really see the point in constantly questioning Michael’s motivations. Based on my knowledge of Michael prior to and since all this (and my own assessment of how I saw myself when I was a fundamentalist and would have pretty much held the same views), I have no reason to think he is a deliberately spiteful or dishonest person. You all can have your own opinion on that, of course (and by the looks of it, the polar opposite to mine!), but I don’t think it will lead anywhere to keep rehashing it on this thread.

I suggest we narrow the thread back down to any specific issues you still want to raise, or specific questions you still want answered arising from the article.

I’ve tried to read all of this, yet ultimately, I find it very wearisome. I appreciate mr. brown’s willingness to dialogue–sorta– but ultimately, it all boils down to this;

“I don’t approve of homosexuality, you people do not deserve a place at the table, and I will do everything in my power to make sure that you never get one. If I can force you to go back into the closet so that I never have to think of you again, then I will do so, because it really makes me uncomfortable to think that I will have to end my prejudice and then actually have to do something–like feed the poor and stop war–that is actually, shall we say, IMPORTANT. And frankly, I really don’t give a damn about how much pain, suffering, misery, hurt, and destruction I cause gay people and their families, because ultimately, you don’t matter to me. Unless, of course, you end up agreeing with me (pace, randy thomas) in which case you are suddenly important. Meanwhile, you are just a bunch of fags and dykes, and the sooner i can make you go away and re-establish the myth of heterosexual hegemony, I’ll be happy.”

Well, Mr. brown, I’m not happy about that. Despite what you believe, I have as much right to be here and have a happy full life as you do, and on my terms not yours.

You give away your real agenda in a very subtle way: no gay teachers in the school, unless they are totally closeted and no one ever finds out. The sin is clearly not homosex, but being found out. Back in the closet. It’s the only way self-righteous, moralizing prigs can be happy about our existence.

Ultimately, mr. Brown, you are an anti-gay bigot. Unfortunately, the world is full of people just like you, who have appointed themselves G’s representatives on earth, and who feel that they have the right–nay, the duty– to makes the lives of other people whom they do not know and clearly know nothing about, as miserable as possible, because they don’t approve of their race, religion, ethnicity, language, gender, national origin, skin color– or sexual orientation. It’s a story as old as the Midianite storm god telling the Hebrews that the lives of the people in the promised land were not really very important after all. And we are still paying the price for that insidious piece of “holiness” in pain and suffering
even today whenever a 15 year old suicide bomber takes out 30 jews with a nail bomb. (And I am a jew, and pro-israel).

Any god who states that you have the right to hurt people in his name is not one that is worth worshipping. The bible makes it clear that the price of admission for his favor is to be no better than he is.

You proclaim you peculiar interpetation of the bible, or the preservation of marriage, or the innocence of the children (TM), or any number of other reasons which flatly only accord with your prejudices, not any sense of reality.

I’ll tell you what the message of the old testament is–smite people. I’ll tell you what the message of Jesus (not that assolhe, Paul) is: leave everybody the hell alone.

honey, it’s just sex, albeit a form of sex that makes your anus clench. And if there is one thing we have learned from centuries of religionists and heterosexuals running the world, it is this:

I enjoyed Mr. Brown’s condescending attempt to make Yuki appear ignorant and foolish:

You write about the slavery issue as if you just discovered a brilliant new argument. If you’d like to research the issue and learn the hermeneutical and cultural differences between the Bible’s teaching on slavery, the Bible’s teaching on the role of women, and the Bible’s teaching on homosexuality, I would encourage you to read Prof. William Webb’s important book, Slaves, Women & Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis.

Ah, yes, Hermeneutics: The slippery art of making the Bible say whatever you want it to say.

I have to agree with most of what Ben in Oakland says albeit with one major difference:

If you even believe the incongruous, unscientific and archaic mess that is scripture you will understand that Jesus preached division and damnation as much as that [expletive deleted] Paul did. It’s no wonder that people like Mike Brown, James Dobson and his dominionist ilk behave the way they do–they’re just following a god’s lead and believe they have the authority to do so. I realize to Mike that’s the highest compliment.

They’re trying to do the same thing Luther (raving-mad lunatic, murderer) and Calvin (control-freak, murderer) have done before them: force their beliefs on others to follow the mandate of an imaginary god. Once you give them an inch, they’ll take a mile and make your lives miserable.

My sincerest apologies to my liberal Christian friends here who try to ‘spit out the bones’ and take the good out of scripture. I realize my comments will sound insensitive. However, I find much of the desire to work with or understand folks like Mike Brown a futile effort. He has no interest in anything you have to say unless it involves renouncing your homosexuality and becoming a Christian (best case scenario) or going back into the closet in shame (next best case scenario). And, he believes he has the authority of a god to do so.

Organizations like Love Won Out couch much of their hateful and ignorant rhetoric in thinly disguised “love the sinner, hate the sin” pleas. However, that is hardly how it plays out in real life. Fundamentalists end up hating the behavior AND shaming the person.

How do I know this? I’m an ex-ex-gay and can say that in my experience none of it works. It’s unscientific, unabashed nonsense. Since coming out of the closet and leaving fundamental Christianity two years ago, my life has been wonderfully fulfilling and joyful. It’s as simple as that. That’s my testimony.

You should also know that Mike feels he’s doing a god and us a service here. I’m sure he chalks these conversations up as either ‘ministering’ to lost gay souls or standing for the truth against ‘the gay agenda’. This is not an open dialog. He has no desire to be swayed.

Dr. Brown, your comparisons are actually wrong. Homosexuality is a distinct orientation and can be compared to HETEROSEXUALITY. This isn’t just about sex. You can be homosexual or heterosexual whether you’re having a sex life or not.

This isn’t a free speech issue either. Identity and respect it is what this is about. Identity is one of THE most powerful features we have as human beings. Whether it’s cultural, religious, ethnic…but more specifically what makes heterosexual OR homosexual are not choices anymore than the fact that we are ALL sexual beings.

And are made to be SOCIAL.

It is insulting, diabolical on it’s face that ANY human being have to relinquish WHO and what they are on condition of having civil rights and freedoms and protection of that identity.
This is the condition of citizenship and humanity that gays and lesbians are forced to live under.

Christianity isn’t ALL of who or what you are, but you know you live in America. Where what you are is a choice, and it’s also a choice that we as a country cannot force anyone ELSE to live under whatever directives of the Bible there are.

Christianity may be incompatible with homosexuality. But that’s not true for EVERYTHING and it shouldn’t be in the lives of gay people.

On all kinds of blog threads, there are people under the mistaken idea that gay people should and must change (or worse, that they CAN change) or not have the identity as gay to be respected JUST as human beings with the same inalienable rights all people have.

It’s not illegal to have an identity, nor should anything require an individual give it up or be assumed to not have it.
That is irrational and unfair….and mean.

You still brought up the multiple partners or unmarried issue around sex. That is a matter of STATUS, not identity and THAT can be changed.
In a heartbeat. So however wrong you think it is, it’s a changeable issue and still not one where a person’s right to change that STATUS is compromised because of how they were having sex prior.

Your identity as a man, a Christian…are safe in America. No one is forcing you to change it nor expects you to because you don’t think homosexuality is a valid identity.
And I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t EVER go someplace where that choice in identity as a Christian could get you violated. Like in Beijing…or Kabul. Where that strength of faith would really be tested.
There is no compromise to your ideals, just your activity and how it punishes gay identity.

The fundamental directive remains, Dr. Brown that all Christians are charged with by Christ himself.
Do not accept or expect for another human being what you wouldn’t accept for yourself.
And for gay people to marry, nurture children, serve in the military openly and honestly are not unreasonable endeavors.
Insisting that they not have those things IS.

You know you don’t have to give up ANYTHING about being Christian to function as one in America or most anywhere in the world.
And therefore you shouldn’t want the same to be done to gay people who don’t choose their orientation.
And you arguing that they do, is like arguing that you believe the sun revolves around the Earth.

Free speech…why, would anyone continue to insult the indentity of someone, over and over again and expect to be LIKED for it?

I mean, Dr. Brown, schools have to maintain civility among students and an atmosphere of safety to that children can learn and get along.
Would it KILL a child to restrain themselves from telling a classmate that they are unfit to walk the Earth and my Bible tells me to tell you that?

Steve is right. Gay folks have heard it ALL THEIR LIVES and reiterating it IS tiresome. If you have nothing NEW to say….then maybe it IS time that you gave schoolteachers in public schools and other venues the floor now.
There are OTHER people who require their story to be told by more expert people than those who wrote the Bible.
You can try and make teachers tell young people in biology class that women have labor pains because of God’s punishment on Eve and then what do you think would happen?

There are time when Biblical teaching IS inappropriated for public schools. And when children take it to mean torturing and assaulting a gay (or suspected of being gay) classmate to the point of suicide, or those kids commit homocide, than do your really think you’ve served your purpose?

Free speech is about responsibility and accountability too. Threats, insults, incitement of violence, poison pills or other forms of speech that threaten another persons livelihood, life and property, are NOT so free.

You know you really wouldn’t have to pay such a high price if YOU didn’t hairshirt all over the place about what you thought of gay people.

But in what way is the world better when gay kid’s pay such a high price just to be left alone to learn and enjoy school?

I keep hoping there is some common ground out there some where. Perhaps this small area is it

However, you immediately go back to justifying why sex between consenting adults in a monogamous committed relationship should be recriminalized in Virginia. Oh, you don’t say that’s what you want to do – no, you talk about “expansive” efforts etc.

Michael, guess what:

When you’re trying to get in someone else’s shoes, you don’t start by justifying why you want to define them as criminals.

Even if Lawrence v. Texas was being exploited in some aggregious way (which, contrary to your claims, it is not), you cannot ignore what reversing it would do.

When I say that you show no empathy, this is an example of what I’m talking about. You don’t seem to care in the slightest about those who would be hurt by your decision because you think reversing Lawrence would gain some tiny advantage. And although you can’t identify that advantage, the possibility is worth condemning hundreds of thousands of gay people to criminal status.

This is consistent with all your arguments.

Because it may possibly at some point somewhere on some slippery slope make it a tiny bit more difficult for some dentist to enforce a dress code (although this was specifically removed), you oppose anti-discrimination laws. The remotest possibility of a slight inconvenience to some hypothetical dentist justifies any amount of workplace discrimination against gay people.

Because of some nameless brother and sister in Germany (or whatever the suspect and usually bogus anecdote of the day) might possibly argue for an incestuous marriage, therefore this justifies denying committed monogamous gay couple ANY protection for their relationship and family.

If you oppose EVERYTHING that would significantly improve a gay person’s life because of the slightest possiblity of some minor inconvenience on the part of some theoretical straight person, then this should tell you something about yourself.

I believe that the call to reconciliation must dominate the call-to-battle. Bon and I are also scripture-based in our reasoning, and therefore very interested in understanding your scriptural interpretations of mercy, and how that ‘mercy must always triumph over justice’. We are also concerned about Jesus’ teaching on impartiality, “He makes his rain to fall on the evil and the good.”

We are interested in your views of marriage for a lifetime, as taught by Jesus. We married 32 years ago, when I was still male. Even though I am female now, we have found the church quite divided on life-long marriage, divorce, and adultery-by-remarriage for those with GID, bi-polar, and other ‘mental disorders’.

– I have been told that I am ‘still male forever in the eyes of God’ and yet told that ‘God wants my now-lesbian marriage to divorce’, and so forth. I wonder how such logic is based….

– I have received ‘letters of shunning’ in secret from pastors forbidding my even-silent attendance at their churches, and not even allowed an excommunication process (wherein I would have been allowed to bring Christian psychologists as my witness and escalation to the denomination may have occurred). To one sin, they give rights of reconciliation/excommunication, but to another, they do not….

I realize that I represent a small section of bisexual and transgender that walk with Christ. Perhaps you would also be more comfortable if these questions were raised in private, rather than in a public forum.

Lastly, I regard you as a brother-in-Christ, and respect my Lord Jesus, who is able to change hearts and minds, or harden them, for His own purposes. Even an attempt at dialog that fails can help the Body of Christ.

I had forgotten that the author of the book of Revelation clearly believed that slavery was an institution that would be present at the time that the anti-Christ arose. One could easily argue that this is evidence that God himself has ordained slavery and that it continue until the end of days.

Somehow the Church has gotten past that. But conservative translations of arsenokoitai? Well now that is an inflexible position – aparantly one of the very few Christian dogmas that cannot be questioned.

Ah, yes, Hermeneutics: The slippery art of making the Bible say whatever you want it to say.

Hermeneutics is like anything else, there is a right way and a wrong way. In this case, it’s the difference between exegesis and isogesis, with the former being the right way to study scripture, and the latter the wrong way.

Exegesis: Analyzing passages from a document – often the Bible – to understand what it meant to its author and others in the author’s culture.

Isogesis: Reading something into a document. One starts with a belief and searches a document for supporting passages. Often used with reference to the Bible. A potential hazard is that the interpreter may quote a verse out of context with considering the rest of the passage or the rest of the Bible.

It is with good reason that Christian leaders like William Wilberforce and Christian authors like Harriet Beecher Stowe led the abolitionist movement.

While I wholeheartedly agree that the church, at least parts of it, was a driving force in the civil rights movement in the middle of the last century, you must also agree that much of it was at odds with such ideas in the centuries before that. Those you mentioned, unfortunately, are some exceptions and not the rule.

However, I wonder if you would so quickly cast off those scriptures Yuki cited if they had referred to the oppression or punishment of homosexuals? Even if understood by your interpretation, we have a scant number of verses dealing with anything approaching homosexuality – a mere footnote in comparison – yet Yuki has presented 25 concerning slavery scattered throughout the old and new testaments.

It strains credulity to think that you and others would not now be quoting those verses to us in support of your stand against homosexuals if those verses read exactly the same, save the subject being homosexuals instead of slaves.

Thanks for your post. I guess your fundamentalist past gave you a helpful perspective!

As I stated yesterday, I’m about to phase out of this blog primarily due to an intense schedule that begins tomorrow and doesn’t let up for one month.

I’m just finishing a long response to David Roberts (hopefully he’ll understand that between speaking last night and then taking two flights home, I’ve had a few other things going) and then I’ll add one comment on the slavery issue, and, for the most part, I’ll have to leave it there.

The love-fest from all the others towards me will be able to continue in my absence.

Yeah, we gays tend to get a little testy when our rights as citizens are being challenged including not being able to adopt or love those we choose to love. Growing up in the Christian church I experienced plenty of the ‘love’ Mike proposes.

The audacity of some people…

An aside: reading the rhetoric from the OP was fairly disgusting. Culture war rhetoric–typical of the pentecostal movement.

I sincerely hope that you are never arrested and thrown in general lock-up with gang members, rapists, murderers, etc.

Mr. Lawrence, Mr. Gardner and Mr. Hardwick, amongst others did face that after being arrested under those sodomy laws that you think are no big deal. I am guessing you never spent any time with prisoners or gang members. I am guessing you have no understanding of just what could happen to a non-criminal (or a fellow criminal for that matter) in that enviornment. Because if you had even the slightest clue as to how high the stakes were to the person being put into that cell, you wouldn’t be so flippant about Lawrence v. Texas or Bowers v. Hardwick.

Oops, I’m sorry. That would require that you have empathy for gay people, and you wouldn’t want empathy to get in the way of your political agenda.

I was finally able to respond to this post in more detail, as per your request. Let me begin with your closing statement:

The argument that societal destruction looms if we allow such marriages is not only specious, it’s absurd; a bunch of Cameronesque nonsense dredged up to support the fact that the only real objection is the interpretation by some of scripture. That is not enough reason to create laws which restrict the rights of others, unless of course, a Theocracy is actually what you are going for.

Now, I find it interesting that you took exception to my stating that I didn’t feel the force of your Red Herring argument (from which you wrongly deduced that I was calling you an idiot), whereas you feel free to speak against a position I may well hold to in the most denigrating and insulting terms – in the very post in which you’re asking me to explain myself. You’re telling me before I start that I’m a jerk if I hold to such a position. That’s your prerogative, of course, but it certainly takes away the incentive to answer. Nonetheless, I will answer your question. (Notice also that I didn’t accuse you of using a cheap debating trick.)

Where our laws intersect with those values found in the Bible, they probably intersect with those in most holy scriptures. However, this country is not a Theocracy, and so we don’t create or uphold laws based solely on the Bible. We treat all beliefs equally, including the lack of any.

I concur with you, and I never said that we should base all our laws on the Bible. I don’t advocate stoning Sabbath breakers and a hundred other laws that were given to Israel, nor do I feel that it has any legal force to say to a judge or a congress person, “But the Bible says . . . !” I was simply noting that many of our laws go back to biblical principles and that when I make decisions in my life – be it the kind of entertainment I enjoy, the way I raise my family, who I vote for, etc., one of the things that helps me to form my values and to make decisions is God’s Word. But that’s just what I do as a citizen in this country, and to the extent that I have a voice or a vote, I act accordingly. How do you deduce from that that I want a theocracy? Or what in these statement makes me a theonomist or a reconstructionist? The only theocracy I want is the one when King Jesus returns to earth. Until then, in my opinion, theocracies are dangerous while theonomies are misguided, and I believe that it is very easy for Christians to get too politicized.

So why don’t I just go along with your desires and back same-sex marriage? Because, in fact, I do not believe it is ultimately in the best interest of the society. You can ridicule for me holding to this, but I’ve thought about these issues at great length, trying to read both sides of the debate, and even without the Scriptures, I would not support same-sex marriage. (Frank Turek has a presentation you can access online on reasons to reject same-sex marriage without using the Bible.) And, since I consider the wisdom of God’s Word in forming personal opinions, that wisdom reinforces my position. Let me also hasten to add that in considering the Scriptures, I challenge my views with the example of Jesus in reaching out to the disenfranchised and marginalized, and that forces me to hear you out and consider your situation and challenge my position. That being said, my convictions as to what is best for our society remain the same. You have probably read David Blankenhorn’s The Future of Marriage, and if so, you know that he argues against same-sex marriage without recourse to the Bible. I concur with his reasoning.

The primary function of the government of this country is not, and I say this as a believer, to ensure that it’s citizens necessarily act in accordance with the laws set forth in the Bible. At at such times when the majority doesn’t understand that, seeking instead to disenfranchise a minority group of citizens via referendum, the court must intervene to make sure all citizens have the rights recognized by the United States Constitution. This is what some call “activist judges” though in reality they are doing their jobs.

Basically, I agree with you here, but we obviously differ deeply as to what the Constitution guarantees, and you would probably side with the legal understanding of the ACLU while I would agree with that of the ADF.

So back to my original question, why can’t the Protestant Church do as the Catholic Church does now, simply ignore any civil marriage they don’t feel follows their view of scripture? I did ask a catholic, btw, and if you get married by a Justice of the Peace, you are not married in the eyes of the RCC. Why then do we not require as a matter of law that couples must be married by a priest?

I’m simply looking at the civil and societal aspects of same-sex marriage, not the religious ones. The fact is, on a civil level, I would be required to recognize a same-sex marriage if it was legalized by the state so I can’t simply “ignore” any marriages that don’t follow my view of scripture.

This country is not a church, and it’s citizens are not a congregation. For some, intimate, loving relationships are only possible with members of the same sex. They aren’t asking for several spouses, just the one that you now get.

I agree totally. This country is not a church. Amen! But the state is not called to guarantee intimate loving relationships; rather, it seeks to uphold marriage, which fundamentally requires a male and female more than it requires “two” (as I have emphasized elsewhere on this thread). You can certainly have an intimate loving relationship, and I’m not trying to stop you,; but you cannot expect the state to recognize it simply because it is how you are constituted. And on a lesser note, is there no sexual fluidity? I had a nice talk with a self-identified gay man while flying to DC last year. He told me he thought he was a happily married heterosexual until his male neighbor made a pass at him and he realized he was attracted to men, and since then, he’s only wanted men. Should he now have the “right” to marry a man?

Now, I know that every time I raise the polygamy question or the incest question, you refuse to follow my alleged rabbit trails. But I never raise the issue as a distraction but rather as a real question. Lawyers for polygamists are bringing their cases to the courts, using language very similar to yours. So, why not just ignore their marriages if you don’t like them? Why impose your view of “marriage equals only two” on them? What makes it wrong? Where it is written in history and why it is compelling that marriage can only join two partners? There is far more precedent for polygamous marriages than for same-sex marriages.
You can say, “But we have laws against polygamy.” Well, we have had laws against same-sex marriages and you argue that those laws should be reversed. You can say, “But I only want one mate,” and the polygamist can say, “You cannot help the state by producing offspring, but I and my wives can. Plus, according to my religious beliefs, I should be allowed to have more than one wife, and you’re restricting me from my exercising my beliefs. And how am I hurting you by having more than one wife?” I can hear him calling your arguments specious and absurd.

Two more points. First, legal recognition is generally associated with moral rightness. If something is legal, it is good; if it is illegal, it is bad. Thus, the legalization of same-sex marriages would send a message to society (intended or not), and that message would be used as leverage to “prove” the rightness of many other related GLBT issues. Second, as evidenced in this thread, same-sex marriage is just one part of a much bigger picture, and based on the intensity of the feelings directed toward me here, it’s clear that same-sex marriage is only the tip of the iceberg. To me, it’s outrageous to think that anyone would want to make transvestitism protected from “discrimination” or to think that it’s my responsibility to accept the rightness of sex-change operations. Yet from reactions to my position that someone should be able to fire a male receptionist who wanted to wear a dress to work (Timothy even deigned to call it a matter of dress code!), it’s very clear where things are going. (The HRC’s policy on “transitioning” underscores this.) One way or another, the rights of those who differ with you will be trampled or scorned, despite all the talk here of me being free to hold to my religious convictions as long as they don’t get in your way. Well, my convictions are getting in your way. Do you grant me the freedom to practice my faith? Only it part.

I apologize for the length of this post, but you’ve made it clear that you wanted me to respond, so I’ve tried to do so in a way worthy of your question. Because I’m going to have to drop out of this post, if you write something that you’d like me to see, or if you would like to interact further on this, please email me privately and I’ll do my best to respond.

Now, to my last short post on slavery, and then I’ll be checking out. Thanks for allowing me to interact with the folks on your website. I trust that others reading it in the days to come will find the interaction worthwhile

Your post touched my heart. I do admit to having forsaken Christ as my Lord for 14 years, from age 21 to 35. I am now 52 years of age. So, I do understand forsaking Christianity at some level.

I think that it takes time to grieve. It takes time to separate the life of Jesus in the Bible from the actions of the church in history. It takes time to reach the ‘yes’ and ‘yes’ conclusion of Hosea 6:1, “Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces, but He will heal us.”

Being torn by this life is difficult, indeed. Being torn by our brothers-in-Christ is double-the-pain. My feeling that a God of love ‘tore me to pieces’ with a desire to be straight and male, but with an opposing engine that is bisexual and female…. is an aspect of love that is incomprehensibly complex.

Knowing that ‘He will heal us’ is a cover of love that becomes all the more incredible when laid upon that driving engine. It is like saying, ‘the damage He gave (or allowed) is the very furnace that purifies our faith, and makes us all the more valuable to Him.’ The engine does not stop; but it endeavors to carry His love in every car of the train, now.

May I offer one of my own fiction short-shorts for your reading? It was penned to a transgender in Christ with HIV. Tis but a few pages in length. Perhaps, it can be a small piece of healing to you also. It is a simple story, k? Nothing terribly doctrinal, at all. My heart is broken for you; you are in my prayers this night.

The slavery issue is always brought up (and rightly so) when dealing with the question of what the Bible says about homosexual practice and how those texts should be applied to today. The issue of women’s rights comes up as well. In fact, God willing, the first night of my lecture series at the Blumenthal Performing Arts Center in Charlotte this year (Feb. 11) will be devoted to this very question: Are We Using the Bible to Sanction Anti-Homosexual Prejudice? Among other things, I’ll be raising the issue of how Jerry Falwell once backed segregation, thinking that it was the Christian thing to do, or how others used the Bible to rob women of their rights or to justify slavery. I’ll be happy to send a copy of the lecture to David upon his request, once it’s available.

I do recommend the scholarly and technical work of William Webb, cited above, that submits all the relevant texts to a rigorous scholarly analysis, challenging many of our pet assumptions and calling for sound hermeneutical principles (as opposed to proof texting or reading the Scriptures in an atomistic fashion). He asks “the questions of what aspects of the [biblical] text we should continue to practice and what aspects we should discontinue or modify due to differences between cultures.” He concludes: “The comparative outcome is this: the homosexual texts are in a different category than the women and slavery texts. The former are almost entirely transcultural in nature, while the latter are heavily bound by culture.” Before trashing this conclusion, work your way through his book.

I’m not going to reproduce my entire lecture here (if you’re in the Charlotte area, please do come by; in fact, the second night we’ll be asking the question, “Is There Such a Thing as Ex-Gay,” and the third night, “Was Jesus Tolerant?”, and we have an open mic for questions each night at the end), but I will say briefly that: 1) slavery as it was instituted in ancient Israel bore no resemblance to modern slavery, whereas same-sex practice (regardless of its associations) is universally condemned in the Scriptures; 2) there are many verses that point to the liberation of slaves as a divine goal, including the exodus from Egypt and the Lord’s jubilee proclamation in Luke 4 (based on the usage of Lev 25 in Isa 61; the Hebrew concept is called d’ror), and so Christians have worked those principles out to fight against slavery; 3) in contrast with this, there is not a single verse in the Scriptures that gives any explicit or even implicit endorsement of homosexual practice; 4) when Jesus reached out to the marginalized, he did so to change them, not simply affirm them.

Again, there is much more to say on this but time and other commitments do not allow for me to engage any further. And I know this might be too much to ask, given the sentiments on this blog, but I would appreciate it if no one questioned my reasons for dropping out. I had no idea the article was coming out about me in the first place, nor did I expect to have spent so much interacting with all of you the last three days. And just like many of you, I’m super busy, with six flights in the next two weeks, an Israel conference to speak at in FL, two seminary classes to teach in CA (fifty hours in six days), two modular classes to teach at FIRE (thirty hours in two weeks), plus the aforementioned lecture series and more out of state travel. (It may surprise you to know this, but out of all these events, only the lecture series is focused on GLBT issues.) So, I’m simply explaining that, like so many of you, my plate is full and I’m not ducking issues or afraid to tackle your objections, and I would hope that you would realize that I have been just one person responding to many different people. If I failed to respond to one of your posts I do apologize, but I did the best I could to prioritize this thread for these days, and I appreciate the opportunity to interact with each of you.

I just spotted these words from Timothy about my emphatic rejection of a theocracy:

Delighted to hear it. Truly.

I keep hoping there is some common ground out there some where. Perhaps this small area is it.

Well, since positive words have been few and far between for all of us these days, and despite the fact that the rest of Timothy’s post does challenge my position (and I appreciate his call for me to quietly reflect on these issues, which I actually continue to do), I could not help but be glad to see that, at least for one moment, Timothy was delighted by something I wrote, to which I must say, I’m delighted as well! Maybe we do have one small (or even tiny) area of harmony.

As to the constant calls for empathy, I don’t know what to say other than what I’ve said many times before: I have tremendous empathy for the positions espoused here; I wrestle deeply with the ramifications of my position; I take no joy in the fact that in your eyes, I am a monster robbing you of your most fundamental rights; and it is because of these things that I have prayed and studied and listened and considered and reexamined things. Some posting here felt free to judge that I was incapable of having empathy, but all that tells me is that you don’t know me at all. I can have empathy and still differ with you and still hold to my convictions. And they are convictions not just born out of study of the Scriptures, they are born out of communion with Jesus, my best Friend, and I would rather disappoint you than disappoint him.

You must be true to your conscience and do what you feel he requires and desires; I must do the same.

I reviewed my earlier comments to you about slavery in your first post, of which Timothy said I sounded condescending. I agree that I sounded that way and I do apologize. Regardless of our differences, I should not have responded like that.

I do not intend to continue posting here, as I’ve noted, but I wanted to set this right.

Caryn, please. You and Bonnie do serious research on Michael Brown before attending this conference.

Read The Southern Law Center Intelligence Report.

Read Brown’s attacks on his critics.

Read QInterstate’s experience at the last conference.

Read QState. Read everything you can get your hands on about Brown and the Florida ‘revival’.
If you are familiar with knock ‘em down Browns dominionism Pentecostalism, don’t let anyone attending the conference physcially touch you in prayer.
From ICN:

…he is now fully engaged in reaching out to homosexual men and women with compassion while taking a strong stand against homosexual activism.

The Brown hyper-graphology (while a common pattern) you see in this thread has nothing to do with compassion or dialogue. It’s another smoke screen. Brown is taking bigger steps, political ties with LaBarbera, Exodus book sales, conferences etc.
Timothy is correct.

Be safe. Check in regularly with trusted friends. Please guard, ground and prepare yourselves mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
Go under the mercy.

Your response to my outlined questions is pretty disappointing, but I learned a while back to expect you to go all over the map as to avoid a direct answer. Since this is your final reply (sort of, you keep amending), I’ll follow a few rabbit trails just this once. As a result, this thread will be quite long so please forgive me everyone.

Now, I find it interesting that you took exception to my stating that I didn’t feel the force of your Red Herring argument (from which you wrongly deduced that I was calling you an idiot), whereas you feel free to speak against a position I may well hold to in the most denigrating and insulting terms – in the very post in which you’re asking me to explain myself. You’re telling me before I start that I’m a jerk if I hold to such a position.

Well, no that’s not what I said. I said:

The argument that societal destruction looms if we allow such marriages is not only specious, it’s absurd; a bunch of Cameronesque nonsense dredged up to support the fact that the only real objection is the interpretation by some of scripture.

The argument(s) I’ve read concerning this are all pretty much a bunch of garbage, and most have a strong stench of the kind of quack science put out by Paul Cameron. If you take these to hold much water, then you can call yourself whatever you like but at the very least I would say you are wrong. I thought I was quite candid with my comments, as opposed to the camouflaged condescension of your debating trick before.

I was simply noting that many of our laws go back to biblical principles and that when I make decisions in my life – be it the kind of entertainment I enjoy, the way I raise my family, who I vote for, etc., one of the things that helps me to form my values and to make decisions is God’s Word. But that’s just what I do as a citizen in this country, and to the extent that I have a voice or a vote, I act accordingly. How do you deduce from that that I want a theocracy? Or what in these statement makes me a theonomist or a reconstructionist?

How exactly do you think a theocracy comes into existence, Mr. Brown? What if something comes to ballot which is entirely Biblical, but would result in the damage of the rights of others? And while we are at it, why would you not vote for a measure that would call for stoning? Is this not in every way a scriptural practice? Or how about some of those rather frightening OT practices which in every way are a command, would you vote for them? These are the natural extension of your comments above.

So why don’t I just go along with your desires and back same-sex marriage? Because, in fact, I do not believe it is ultimately in the best interest of the society.

These arguments are a tad too convenient. What if we were to hold heterosexual couples to the kind of uber-standards you do homosexuals? Why do you suppose we don’t require each couple to undergo psychological evaluation before marriage, to find out if it is likely to be a solid marriage, and not end up a drain on society. Find out if there is a risk the husband might beat the wife (future drain on our health and legal systems, not to mention welfare if she has a period of no income after leaving him).

And what about further evaluation before the couple is allowed to have children. Can you imagine the grief and sheer carnage we might prevent, incredible negative effects on society we might avoid, if we were to do that? Should we not deny couples without sufficient income, mental backgrounds of stable, healthy childhoods, etc, the ability to procreate? We do this for adopted children now, why on earth should natural parents be exempt? Would this not be in the best interests of society?

And I realize you don’t like no-fault divorce, I don’t care for it myself. But in truth, why do we allow divorce at all unless there is adultery? Simply do not allow it. Would you vote for this, it is certainly biblical. And adultery, wow, let’s get those laws back, would you vote your conscience there, if someone put that up for ballot, would you vote your conscience and make adultery criminal, punishable by time in jail perhaps?

Do you understand now, Mr. Brown, how inconsistent this all is? You and I both know the only reason for your objection to same-sex marriage, and that is your interpretation of scripture. And that sir, is a matter where your conscience guides your life only. When you vote, you are excising control over another’s life. And that’s why I said earlier, the real courage for someone like you would be in allowing others the freedom to run their lives according to their own consciences – free will. Because frankly, what you and the rest of the church are doing has not worked – it is counter productive and negates all the signs and wonders you will ever experience at a thousand “revivals.”

The fact is, on a civil level, I would be required to recognize a same-sex marriage if it was legalized by the state so I can’t simply “ignore” any marriages that don’t follow my view of scripture.

I didn’t say they wouldn’t exist, that your life wouldn’t ever intersect with a married, gay couple. Good grief man, are you that hung up on this? But since you mention it, what about all those Catholics who have to deal with marriages which are sacrilege before God in their eyes? A couple married by a JOTP and not a priest have committed a mortal sin – they are bound for hell as I understand it. A Catholic must recognize that couple on the civil level, knowing they have done this terrible, immoral thing and are now living in a sinful embrace. This is a reality for the Catholic, don’t they count? How do you rationalize forcing them to do such a thing, compromise their faith so? The point is, the church does not have to recognize them and thereby compromise what they believe as their morality or adherence to scripture, and that’s a far as they have a right to expect it to go.

Two more points. First, legal recognition is generally associated with moral rightness.

Perhaps in your reality. Is it moral to you that you can gamble legally? Is it moral to you that in parts of Nevada you can hire a prostitute legally? Is it moral to you that a girl of 13 can legally be married in New Hampshire? There really are a bunch of these. And the fact is, what may be moral to you, might not be to another faith and lest you forget, you agreed with me above that your statement was in error, that the majority does not always win in our form of government. That morality issue may fly back in your face one day when what the next guys religion considers moral may get picked over yours. Bottom line, and I believe you also agreed with this above (it’s hard to keep track of which positions you have changed and which are the same), that we don’t check scripture when making laws.

To me, it’s outrageous to think that anyone would want to make transvestitism protected from “discrimination” or to think that it’s my responsibility to accept the rightness of sex-change operations. Yet from reactions to my position that someone should be able to fire a male receptionist who wanted to wear a dress to work (Timothy even deigned to call it a matter of dress code!),

The only people I can think of that have any say in how a transgender person deals with their life is that person, and their therapist and physician. It’s none of my business, nor is it yours. You need to get over this feeling that you are everyone’s mommy and daddy. And certainly if you are going to speak of these issues in public, learn the difference between transvestite and transgender, you owe others the decency of at least that much.

One way or another, the rights of those who differ with you will be trampled or scorned, despite all the talk here of me being free to hold to my religious convictions as long as they don’t get in your way. Well, my convictions are getting in your way. Do you grant me the freedom to practice my faith? Only it part.

No one promised that you won’t be scorned, and I have no control over that. If you hold views which the general public find repugnant, I’m sure you will get some grief. But you have every right to hold those views and speak out on them. If by your opposition to my rights you are trying to avoid having others disagree with your views, or find them offensive, that’s pretty selfish. And if you feel that ever having to deal with a gay married couple or even a transgender person, and treat them like a human being, is preventing you from practicing your faith, then again, you have some odd ideas about faith.

The length of this thread is why an unmoderated discussion with Michael Brown will soon accomplish nothing. I didn’t even respond to every side issue and look how long this is. I’ve made some observations as I am sure others have, and we will be posting again as we gain more background and history. Stay tuned.

Do you understand now, Mr. Brown, how inconsistent this all is? You and I both know the only reason for your objection to same-sex marriage, and that is your interpretation of scripture. And that sir, is a matter where your conscience guides your life only. When you vote, you are excising control over another’s life. And that’s why I said earlier, the real courage for someone like you would be in allowing others the freedom to run their lives according to their own consciences – free will. Because frankly, what you and the rest of the church are doing has not worked – it is counter productive and negates all the signs and wonders you will ever experience at a thousand “revivals.”

David,

I think you sum up the issue nicely in this paragraph. Some Fundamental Christians grab hold of a few verses in the bible and then work backwards from there when determining the status of GLBT people.
In the absence of a “God” who actually substantiates their beliefs with demonstrations of “power,” they are left to come up with their own system for dealing with tgt. The system is as inconsistent as their arguments, indeed, as inconsistent as people (which is telling). For example, on the one hand, programs offered by Exodus and affiliates claim that gays are made by bad parents during a childs upbringing. On the other hand, those same programs purport that tgt is a result of “generational sin” (“…the sins of the fathers being visited upon the children up to the fourth generation…”), which suggests one is born gay. Gee, if it’s part of the “sin nature,” is it “un-natural? If they really believe that gay sex is equal to “adultery,” i.e., ‘sin is sin,’ then why do they not follow Jesus’ lead and simply say “…go and sin no more.” Why is a special “ministry” needed for tgt if tgt is not special? Since their God is not willing to ‘fix’ gay people, they have to do it for “him.”

A simple way of finding out if Mr Brown wants a theocracy is to ask him if idolatry should be illegal. The Bible clearly condemns it, the US Constitution clearly makes it legal (demonstrating that the US Constitution is not based on the Bible). He argues that because homosexuality is not consistent with his view of the Bible, homosexuals should not have the same rights and privileges others get. Yet, the Bible clearly condemns worshiping other gods. Therefore, I wonder if Mr Brown believes being a Hindu, Muslim, etc should be illegal?

Mr Brown said: “The comparative outcome is this: the homosexual texts are in a different category than the women and slavery texts. The former are almost entirely transcultural in nature, while the latter are heavily bound by culture.”

Question: how does the average believer decide which texts are transcultural and which are culture bound? How does one pick and choose? Is there an agreed-upon formula or standard in Scripture — or are each of us free to obey the laws we want, impose that ones we don’t like on others and disregard the rest? I know believers who insist that ALL Scripture is transcultural — even though they don’t feel obligated to actually obey it.

Dr. Brown has in the past used any non-confrontational communication with a gay person as evidence that he is not bigoted. He did so with one gay person with whom he had lunch. He did so on this thread with Dr. Knox.

He even used the instance of one person allowed to ask a question from the floor of his anti-gay seminar as evidence that he is open (he went on to mock and demonize the guy, but in another venue).

If you interact with Dr. Brown, I think it is very likely that he will use you as an argument of how he is not transphobic. Just keep that in mind.

Question: how does the average believer decide which texts are transcultural and which are culture bound? How does one pick and choose?

I’m not sure what Brown means by “transcultural/culture bound.” But he is drawing on William Webb’s work, referenced above. According to this review Webb observed that in the Bible slavery and women’s rights are always treated progressively (redemptive is Webb’s term), whereas homosexuality is always condemned. Apparently Webb concludes that Christians today should take a redemptive stance on slavery and women’s rights, and, to be consistent with scripture’s prohibitive view, condemn homosexuality.

Compare the following two quotes from Michael Brown’s contributions here and tell me he does not contradict himself.

When dealing with homosexuality & same-sex marriage:

So, as a citizen of this country, I could not in good conscience support a law that sanctioned something that I understood to be contrary to God’s order and sinful.

Then, when asked because idolatry is explicitly listed as sin in the Bible, should worshiping other gods be made illegal:

Nick — of course not! They should be fully legal.

Thus, it appears that Mr Brown is willing to support a law that sanctions something that is explicitly declared sinful and contrary to God.

So, if it involves homosexuals, then Brown cannot support any law that goes against the Bible. But if it involves other things (including idolatry), then he is willing to support laws that go against the explicit biblical commands (Old and New). Amazing how idolatry is condemned in the 10 commandments but homosexuality is not. Yet, Brown is more lenient to the idolatrous than homosexuals.

“…he was a happily married heterosexual until his male neighbor made a pass at him and he realized he was attracted to men,…”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!

WOW. That is… amazing. Let’s see what we got there:
• The “predatory gay man” that “turns” someone gay by making a pass at them.
• The person who was not gay and never in his entire life thought he might have been until this aggressive homo “went after” or “targeted” them.

To respond:
• Men have made passes at me and it didn’t make me “realize” I was straight. Nor did it make me even entertain the notion. Most of these men were creepy.
• I have “entertained” the possibility – and fact – that I’m gay my entire life. No “abuse” or definitive event “aroused” it out of me. It was a gradual acceptance in my life that was very private and personal.

Regarding that “translation” of william webb. that idea of progressive-vs-condemning is just plain silly. It’s search for meaning and pattern where there isn’t one, and then claiming it has relevance to your pre-ordained conclusion– we think gay is bad, and here’s our biblical interpetation to back it up.

I apologize in advance for having to end my side of the discussion with you here, although I assume you’ll continue to post your views for others to read. But as I’ve been saying the last day or so, I really have to wind things up, despite the importance of the topics being raised, and I have probably more than worn out my welcome here.

In reply to your comments, you have the legal right to be openly gay in America, and I support that legal right, just as I support the legal right of a Muslim to practice his faith here in America. But I do not support same-sex marriages anymore than I support the “right” of a Muslim to practice polygamy in America, despite that being part of his religion, and I don’t support teaching homosexuality as normative in our schools anymore than I support teaching our school kids why they should consider believing in Allah.

Now, as for my opinion as to which is “worse,” homosexual practice or idolatry, the answer is idolatry.

Again, I’m sure you’ll have a response to my post, and I assume it will a merit a response from me, so please do not take my non-response to indicate a lack of interest on my part. (For others reading this post, the same can be made for the questions you may have raised that I was not able to respond to. Perhaps in another setting, at another time, the discussion can continue.)

Yes i do, but not if you would have your way. I’d be both a criminal and back in the closet.

So here’s a question for, you Mr,. Brown. why can’t you just admit you really don’t like gay people at all? At least then, you would be honest. I can respect an honest bigot, but not a hypocritical one.

I already answered Michael Brown’s question regarding polygamy and incest, and those who want to have multiple wives ARE NOT using the same argument or even similar ones that the gay community is.
And his comparisons, however social and civil do NOT stand up to that which concern gay people and his argument IS religious.
It’s ALWAYS been religious.
He couldn’t care less about the scientific or characteristic meaning of being homosexual.

And he will be making no sacrifices whatsoever in the civil lexicon of what legal and civil marriage are in our country.
The basics are very simple, they are few, and he’s already running out of here.
Folks, can somebody tell me why people like him or Warren Throckmorton behave as if I’m not here?

The religious question and scientific questions keep getting conflated. And it matters a great deal that religious context be set aside for some arguments.

And as far as the moral question is concerned, we all know that liars, thieves, cons and murderers AND adulterers can all marry once and again and again.
A life serving prisoner in jail can be married legally because our society believes that marriage serves a grounding and supportive role for individuals who choose it.
Even if by their status as incarcerated or even severly handicapped limits them in so many ways in society at large and for the support of children.

But someone like Ellen DeGeneres and Portia DiRossi cannot marry. Or my rabbi and her attorney life partner of 18 years in the support of the boys they adopted.

The moral question remains: does the worst heterosexual have more rights to basic and supportive freedoms than the most upstanding and contributive of homosexuals?

When the answer is yes, there is no equal measure or standing and no moral grounds on which to stand.

The status regarding close relatives and those already married are not a matter of one’s human condition, as I stated before.

Brown is the one with all kinds of straw men at the ready. He refuses to regard gay people as a separate issue and what second class citizenship really means.
Brown could NEVER claim that is what HIS situation would revert to if gay people were elevated to equal access and freedom.
Christians wouldn’t be punished and are not for expressing themselves as such?
Again, he selfishly only sees what he thinks he might have to give up, rather than if he actually does or has. And is perfectly fine with someone all he believes being at the expense of gay people.

But why support such legal restrictions or punishments on a gay person who expresses themselves openly as such.
Again, Mr. Brown here forgot the principle of treating someone the way HE’D want to be treated.

Not surprising he didn’t last long here. As long as he can’t acknowlege and abide that gay peope are separate and have to be see as having a different orientation, not different regard for what is right and supported by society at large, he hasn’t learned very much, despite all the books he’s claimed to have read and understood.

I would appreciate your intelligent insights my friends as to why I’m so ignored by him…and his ilk.

In reply to your comments, you have the legal right to be openly gay in America, and I support that legal right,

No, you don’t support that legal right. As you stated above, you support the reversal of Lawrence v. Texas knowing that such a reversal would remove the right to be openly gay in a dozen states.

You may argue that it’s because gay people are “using” Lawrence to make legal arguments that you don’t like (a claim that I find laughable), and you can claim that it “isn’t being inforced”, but ultimately you do not “support that legal right”.

Also, you believe that public school teachers should be fired for being openly gay. That doesn’t sound like support to me.

The fact is, Dr. Brown, you haven’t yet found an anti-gay legislative effort that you didn’t support or a pro-gay legislative effort that you didn’t oppose.

Many years ago, when I was fighting against an anti-gay initiative in my state, I met a lady on the opposite side who was full of mis-information and of hate-disguised-as-love. (Her favorites were that all gay men are mass murderers and child molesters). She asked me to write to her. I took all of her material, copied it, and did some research. I showed her where nearly every statement she made was, according to reputable research and information, either a distortion or an outright fabrication. I did it respectfully logically, and calmly. The next time I saw her, I asked her if she received and read my letter. Her response was: “I don’t have time to read letters from homosexuals.”

And on a lesser note, is there no sexual fluidity? I had a nice talk with a self-identified gay man while flying to DC last year. He told me he thought he was a happily married heterosexual until his male neighbor made a pass at him and he realized he was attracted to men, and since then, he’s only wanted men. Should he now have the “right” to marry a man?

Dr. Brown has long had a habit of arguing from anecdote.

I imagine that this works quite well in his usual audiences. They don’t know the “married twins” story is a hoax. They don’t know that Ake Green isn’t sitting in jail. They don’t know the truth behind Michael Marcavages’s efforts to interrupt gay events. They don’t know the David Parker was not “arrested for standing up for his child’s rights”.

But when he comes here (or other sites where gay people comment) he’s confronted by folks that are not fooled by his fairy tales. We know the facts, the back story, and the lies told by Brown’s buddies at ADF and Peter LaBarbera. So his anecdotes result in derision and a presentation of the facts which refute his claims.

So what does Dr. Brown do? He presents a story that cannot be refuted. He’s the sole source. We can’t prove him wrong.

Sadly, the story he presented is so fanciful and culture war crafted that you just can’t help but laugh. And i dare say that there isn’t a single soul here that actually believes that some happily married heterosexual was seduced into homosexuality by a pass from his neighbor thus proving magical sexual fluidity.

I don’t claim that Dr. Brown made the story up out of whole cloth; though it wouldn’t surprise me.

Perhaps some guy was playing games with his vehemently anti-gay plane mate. Or perhaps he told some version of this story that has since been recrafted to support Dr. Brown’s agenda. But whatever the origin, the story is – at best – naive.

Yet again Dr. Brown has used the implausible (or downright untruthful) to argue by anecdote. And yet again he’s made himself appear to be startlingly misinformed and possessing of poor judgment.

Timothy: I think it would be fair to say that he does support the right to be openly gay. but don’t have sex because he wants to be able to throw you in jail. And don’t expect to keep your job, either.

but you can still be openly gay. Just expect the full weight of the heavy consequences you will pay for daring to flout his hypocritical implementation of his interpetation of G’s alleged word.

Timothy: if this “proves” sexual fluidity, does it also then not “prove” that there is no such thing as a heterosexual, only sexually “fluid” (gotta love the unintended punniliciousness of that!–hope it doesn’t leave any stains). sillyness piled on silliness. If these idiots and bigots were only not so dangerous, we could all be laughing.

Mr. Kincaid so eloquently said what I wanted to say. All I could formulate is “this is silly crap”. Tip-of-the-hat to Timothy! (and to Emily).

Dr. Brown: Trust me. If that man was happily married it was only out of convenience or peer pressure. And 10-to-1 I would bet he had a profile on realjock.com/gay.com and had online fantasies to tide him over until he recognized his sexual desires were not being met.

Who would care to speculate how many “happily marrieds” are on gay.com at any given moment. I can only speculate on the number but I can give you several personal examples from my experiences on…cough cough…online gay chat rooms and at the gym.

“So here’s a question for, you Mr,. Brown. why can’t you just admit you really don’t like gay people at all? At least then, you would be honest. I can respect an honest bigot, but not a hypocritical one.”

Well, not that my comments necessarily fueled these responses [pats self on back], but I am relieved that others are seeing just how dangerous this man’s ideas are.

We should not give him an inch, no, not for a moment. With his intentions laid bare there should little discussion of ideas and significant, effective resistance.

As we’ve seen he has no desire for fair and balanced dialog. His speech is a battlecry–an attack on our rights as United States citizens.

It’s funny. Now that I’m an openly gay man, I see myself as just a regular guy: one with a great job, two beautiful children, lucky in love with a good partner and an ex-wife who is still my good friend. I don’t see my life as part of some gay agenda trying to take the country from heterosexual people. I’m just trying to live my short life as optimally as possible. I’m sure others here feel the same way.

Dear all: I wanted to take a moment and say thank you for the concern that has been expressed towards Bon and I about our attending the Feb 14 dialog in Charlotte NC, USA. I received some notes here; and some privately.

But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. [I Corinthians 12:24-26]

I hope that we do not ‘suffer’ at all. But if we do, it is good to know that we have an ‘extended family’ here on Exgaywatch that is concerned for us, and that can help us to recover.

Blessings always! May the Lord bless you for your kindness towards us! Much love in Christ; Caryn

By the speed of response dying down over the past day I guess everyone feels like what I am feeling about Michael Brown now. Tired of listening to a person who refuse to listen. From contradictory remarks of homophobia based on ‘the best interest of society’ but later changed to ‘the scriptures’, from double standards on slavery and idolatry as opposed to homosexuality.

On my part, the biggest insult he gave to himself is his total lack of knowledge about transvestites. In fact, I was tempted to question him on the difference between a transvestite and a transsexual, then ask him what he knows about HBS. But I guess in the end he would then turn to throwing at the table whatever books that supports his delusional thinking and ideas. He would then probably attempt to justify his transphobia instead.

Yes, that is it. This post is no longer The Fighting Words Of Michael Brown; but seems more like The Justifying Claptrap Of Michael Brown. Sad. Sad for him indeed.

I was watching the helmet headed Beveryly LaHaye being interviewed by Larry King.
“We love homosexuals” she said with her pasted on smile.
Do the Michael Browns and Beverly LaHayes ever stop to think if ‘the homaseckshals’ love them back?

Do they ever ask? Do they EVER consider actually listening to gay people?

Would Michael Brown or Beverly LaHaye EVER lecture black people or determine that they know more about being black or racism than a black person who came of age during the civil rights era?

This is what infuriates me about this all too apparent and luxurious arrogance of these folks.
If I want to know about Jews, learn what it means to be Jewish, find out about what the Holocaust was like. I will consult Jews, I will talk to a concentration camp survivor.

Talking to EX gays about being homosexual doesn’t qualify. These are gay people made as uncomfortable with their orientation as people like Michael Brown are.

You have to talk to survivors. To people who embrace who they are and have learned how to live in the world as who they really are.
Just like Jews, despite being under siege and threatened in many places.
Like those determined to allow the world to know the truth about them and their place among us.

It’s the gay folks who should do the TELLING, and people like Michael Brown to humble his fat ego enough to ASK and LISTEN.
He has no reason NOT to believe a gay person and no reason to dispute gay folks. Therein, you can only find commonality. Such as being gay is acquired the same way being heterosexual is.

It’s when you’re loved back you know you’ve arrived at the truth. Even moreso, if I’m trusted to say anything for the gay community BY gay folks, THAT is even more of an arrival to the place we all need to be.

Which is being trusted to look after each other.
And after all, isn’t that what Jesus wanted?

Regan: It’s a great idea, but if he were to do that and consider the consequences of his activites then he couldn’t be a BIG(idi)OT. and that is what this is about, not religion, not family, not anything except how much he doesn’t like AND wants to hurt gay people.

To me, it’s outrageous to think that anyone would want to make transvestitism protected from “discrimination” or to think that it’s my responsibility to accept the rightness of sex-change operations. Yet from reactions to my position that someone should be able to fire a male receptionist who wanted to wear a dress to work (Timothy even deigned to call it a matter of dress code!),

David’s riposte

The only people I can think of that have any say in how a transgender person deals with their life is that person, and their therapist and physician. It’s none of my business, nor is it yours. You need to get over this feeling that you are everyone’s mommy and daddy. And certainly if you are going to speak of these issues in public, learn the difference between transvestite and transgender, you owe others the decency of at least that much.

Amen and Amen! Brown’s transphobia is palpable. If he actually knew any transgendered persons he would never display his ignorance in a statement like this.

The only men I know that want to wear a dress to work, are “christian” activists trying to provoke the public against transgendered individuals.

I daresay if Brown actually met someone who has had a “sex-change operation” he would never know it; how would his judgement of the “rightness” of it ever come into play? Methinks the evil is in his mind.

I am torn between believing his transphobia is driven as a result of simple fear and ignorance, or out of some phallic taboo. Really, why should he care if a trans-woman completes a transition he would never even see. And please, what biblical authority does he cite for this objectification? It’s just prejudice, nothing more. A whitewashed tomb, for sure!

Seriously people, can those who argue regarding dress codes and bathrooms against the transgendered be THAT trifling and stupid?!

Show of hands, men living as women can still wear pants to work. Places with uniform dress codes like restaurants and law enforcement require that ALL their staff wear pants.
There are plenty of restaurants, movieplexes and the like that have family or single room toilet facilities. If there are single room toilets, however marked, I’ve been known to go into the one marked for men, simply because it’s the only one free.

Public accomodation is still not a problem most of the time. Neither is what someone wants to wear to work, even if they are living as the opposite sex.

And what that person does professionally, their gender has little affect on their competence on a job they’ve already held for years and years.
Apparently, brains and a big heart in the case of someone transgendered carries no weight with the likes of Brown.

Just whether they’ll be wearing a skirt or not. So much for Prince Charles…and kilts.

Deuteronomy 22:5 A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the LORD your God detests anyone who does this.

As opposed to homosexuality, where God only detests the “behavior.”
—
And something I’m sure we’ve all had to deal with from time to time, bird’s nest protocol:

Deuteronomy 22:6-7 If you come across a bird’s nest beside the road, either in a tree or on the ground, and the mother is sitting on the young or on the eggs, do not take the mother with the young. You may take the young, but be sure to let the mother go, so that it may go well with you and you may have a long life.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve almost taken the mother bird with the young…

Yukie, my dear you can be trusted because you are bright and courageous. I think you have been blessed to have been in both lives. You can teach us all a great deal because you are unique.
You are OUR Yukie. Our friend, a loved one.

You care about us here enough to join us and speak as a repectful and loving friend.

Did I say congratulations on your new marriage? If I didn’t, forgive me honey.
All my best!

But seriously, I really do not know how to be a boy, I knew for some reason I was a girl all my life.

Somehow I managed to make do, trying to be like Richard Gere & Harrison Ford, both whom I admire a lot, but ended up appearing somewhat like their tomboyed duplicates! Thank heavens the play acting is over. ; )

I find it interesting that many would call Brown’s incitement to Holy War as Jihad. The war we fight is not physical but spiritual as found in Eph 6:10-20. The fight we fight here is not only in ideology but for the hearts and minds of men and women who otherwise would be lost forever. Gay marriage is not acceptable. Marriage is between one man and one woman–we don’t need to mention blacks being unable to marry because we are talking in the area of gender not race. Man and woman weren’t created for the same sex but differently for the different sexes. I used to think that homophobia was blatant sexism because of the two men or two women but it is a perversion of the worst kind but there is a way out through Jesus Christ. Why do gays always rejoice when a person ‘comes out’ but smash them up when they want to live life as a heterosexual? Double standard to ‘it doesn’t matter what your orientation is’

I find it interesting that many would call Brown’s incitement to Holy War as Jihad. The war we fight is not physical but spiritual as found in Eph 6:10-20.

Then why does Brown and the like try to pass laws or change laws to take away our fundamental rights as American citizens?

Marriage is between one man and one woman–we don’t need to mention blacks being unable to marry because we are talking in the area of gender not race.

Yes, let’s just sweep the past under the rug. The time when Americans did not recognize African American marriages because they didn’t even believe they had souls.

Marriage is not as clearly defined as you think. For YOU, marriage is one man one woman, but that is not MY definition.

And do you mean they have to have the equipment (penis, vagina) and that justifies their marriage or do you mean they have to be functioning equipment (complete with adequate sperm and eggs for reproduction purposes). Can a sterile couple marry? Can elderly marry? Can couples who plan on not reproducing marry?

Why do gays always rejoice when a person ‘comes out’ but smash them up when they want to live life as a heterosexual?

I would rejoice if a fish wanted to live on land and successfully did so, but most fish I know die within a few minutes out of the water.

Also, if a gay person chose to live as a heterosexual BECAUSE he truly fell in love with someone of the opposite sex and was truly able to have an intimate relationship with that person, then I would see no problem with that. BUT THE REALITY IS that most gays who try to go hetero are FORCED TO DO SO BECAUSE THEY HAVE BEEN TAUGHT BY FALSE PROPHETS THAT GOD HATES THEM AND WILL ONLY LOVE THEM IF THEY ARE STRAIGHT.

As a Christian, I will never rejoice over someone who has been forced to change because they were taught by false and heretical teaching that God will only accept them if they change their sexual orientation.

I think that you will find that baseless and mindless platitudes are not well received here.

Simply stating things under the assumption that because you say them they are true simply makes you appear arrogant. And if you have any desire to be an ambassador of Christ, this is a very poor reflection on Him.

I challenge you to revisit scripture to see if you can find the qualifications that Christ set out for those who would speak for him. I think you will find that arrogance, self-righteousness, and a spirit of condemnation are not among them.